The Rosegold Academy of Accounting had a classy campus. The hedges of yellow and pink roses were neatly trimmed and green with life, the paths were paved in rosy quartz and white marble, and the buildings glittered in their gilded ornaments: fluted pilasters, spiralling columns, grand reliefs on the pediments; all cast and hammered from the same gaudy stuff.
In Canterlot, the only place you could cast your eyes and not catch the glint of gold as it reflected the sun’s overbearing rays was the behind the curtains of your own eyelids, but here at RAA, where they taught the ponies who would mete that metal, it was so omnipresently blinding that it shone clear through those thin flaps of skin like they were glass.
At the center of the campus was a solid-gold statue of the mare for whom this college was named: Rosegold, a Royal Student of Celestia’s from the 1700s, as the plaque explained. A student in what, Sunset couldn’t entirely be sure: Rosegold was clearly an earth pony, so it certainly couldn’t have been magic.
Her academy also didn’t seem to have Candidate Number One anywhere in it, so Sunset’s trip over there was a complete waste of time.
Once Sunset successfully extracted the apparently-hypnotized Smolder from the statue’s plinth (through no small application of forceful telekinesis and on-the-spot heat resistance enchantments that left the solid gold statue only slightly melted), it was time to visit the other university at which this candidate was taking summer classes.
The D. F. Foundation School of Law was a pillar of legal education in Equestria. In stark contrast to Rosegold’s, the DFFSL was mostly plain white marble. All the lamps lighting the walkway – because this place taught night classes, too – were cast in ink-black iron. The only gold was kept to the words on the signs in front of the halls. It was a lot less offensive on the eyes, but also a lot more… boring.
Even if these places taught magic, Sunset couldn’t really imagine herself studying at either college. College was for suckers who didn’t have access to the royal archives whenever they wanted and a sense of self-motivation.
In any case, despite the fact that the mare sought by Sunset Shimmer took night classes here, there she sat, on a bench in the quad, shaded from the early-afternoon sun by the boughs of a broad old willow tree.
She colored in the polaroid in the dossier perfectly: a periwinkle earth pony with an arctic-white mane, tied into a bizarrely-complicated ponytail-into-bun-into-twintails setup that must have taken all morning to get right. Marking her flanks was a heavy, crimson-bound tome, almost as thick as it was wide, opened wide for anypony to read. A pair of lacquered orange glasses rested on her muzzle, behind which bright magenta eyes were engrossed in… whatever it was she wrote with the pen in her fetlock.
“There she is,” Sunset said, tucking the folder back into her bags.
“Finally,” Smolder groaned, before claiming a different bench on the walk to lie down on and catch some sun. A lazy thumb wobbled in the air. “You got this.”
“Of course I do.”
When Sunset reached the blue mare’s bench, the candidate briefly looked at her… and turned back to her work.
“Hiya, –” Sunset began.
She didn’t get to continue. “You’re blocking my light,” the mare drily noted, without so much as a glance her way.
“Excuse me?”
“Celestia’s sun emits this thing called ‘light’.” The mare turned to stare at Sunset. “You’re standing in it. I need you to move two steps to the left.”
Rude. Still, Sunset held her tongue and complied with the request, because she couldn’t go picking fights with the first candidate on the list. At least get to the fourth or fifth one, first. “That enough?”
“Yeah.”
The blue mare proceeded to drop the conversation there, getting back to writing what appeared to be an essay or something.
After letting a minute slip by without a word between either of them, Sunset shook her head and began her spiel again. “Hiya, I’m Sunset Shimmer, Royal Student and assistant to the acting Princess.” Neither her name nor her title sparked any light of recognition, frustratingly enough. “You’re Sugarcoat, right?”
“That’s my name,” Sugarcoat answered, without looking up. She swatted her tail at an unseen fly.
“Great! I’ve been looking for you, on behalf of Princess Cadance.”
“She hasn’t been crowned yet, so legally, she’s not really a Princess, is she? Just an alicorn assuming the duties of an acting Princess.”
Was everypony gonna point that out? “Well, I’m glad you brought that up, actually! We’re trying to fix that.”
“Good to know. That should make her responsibilities easier.” No other response was given.
Sunset took a deep breath. She was starting to get the idea that a subtle approach wouldn’t work. “Sugarcoat, I’m here to offer you a job coordinating the coronation. You interested?”
Sugarcoat finally set down her pen. Removing her glasses, she cleaned the lenses with a cloth before replacing them on her snout and looking Sunset dead in the eye for the first time in the entire conversation. The moment their eyes met, a torrent of words bolted from Sugarcoat’s mouth:
“I’m going to need some details. What’s the pay? This sounds like gig work, but is there a chance of future employment? What permits are required? Am I going to be managing staff? Is there a union? When is the coronation scheduled?”
Sunset blinked. “Er… Negotiable; absolutely; depends; probably; in a manner of speaking; and we’re still discussing that. In that order.
“I see. You don’t know anything. You’re just the messenger-mare.”
Before Sunset could object (and she certainly had some choice opinions about being talked down-to and compared to a common errand-filly), Sugarcoat shrugged and said, “Alright, sure. Tell Cadance, or whoever is available and can actually discuss the terms of my prospective employment, that I’m interested to hear more. You clearly know where to find me.” And with that, she got back to her work.
It was for the best that Sunset didn’t inform Sugarcoat that she was, in fact, the highest-ranking and most-informed pony attached to her plan, on account of Cadance having no clue about it at all. Sugarcoat wanted more info? Fine; Sunset would go over her plan with Cadance tomorrow, and Cadance would be able to tell Sunset what to tell Sugarcoat.
The important thing right now was, Sugarcoat was a tentative ‘yes’. There was really no need to throw all that away. No matter how much indignant rage Sunset was quaking with.
“…Yeah. Will do,” she tried not to growl. “Bye, then.”
“M-hm.”
Sunset turned and walked away, shaking her head and thinking about explosions. “We’re done here, Smolder.”
The little dragon jerked upright with an interrupted snore. She’d probably missed the entire exchange.
As they left the DFFSL Campus and began the walk to the next candidate’s location, Sunset popped the dossier back out of her bags. She already knew where her next candidate could be found; she just wanted to see what Abacus Cinch had said about Miss -Coat here in that cover letter Sunset ignored.
For Smolder’s sake, she read aloud: “|As the valedictorian of the class of 1998, Sugarcoat is not only an exceptionally-intelligent mare, but an exemplar of all the virtues that earth ponies contribute to Equestrian society: work ethic, integrity, pragmatism, and a nurturing nature.|”
“…You wanna run that last one by me again?”
“Yeah, I don’t see it. Let’s find out how Cinch explains her reasoning.”
“|Miss -Coat’s uncommon excellence and academic drive brought her across several county lines to attend Princess Amore’s Crystal Memorial Preparatory Academy. Upon graduation, she wasted no time pursuing further education at two separate collegiate institutions.|”
“Does it say why?”
“Nope. I can only assume her life’s ambition is to become a lawyerccountant and assume the title of Ultimate Nag.”
“…She wants to be a really old ponyess?”
Oh, right. Slang issues. “No, uh… What do dragons call a super-annoying dragon that you just want to kick right in the face?”
“…A dragon.”
“No, I mean – one that goes out of their way to make themself your problem?”
“You’re still just describing a dragon.”
“Yeesh, aren’t you a misdracope?”
“What’s a misdracope?”
“Someone who doesn’t like dragons.”
“Oh.” Smolder shrugged. “You ponies sure have a lot of words for ‘dragon’.”
This might be harder than it was worth. “Forget it. Let’s just get back to the assigned reading.
“|Her commitment to responsibility is paralleled by exceedingly few. Seldom do I ever meet a pony as willing to hold herself and her peers accountable. Not only does Miss -Coat have a spotless disciplinary record; our faculty has been able to rely on her to discover and report any potential issues before discipline is required.| So she’s a snitch.
“|But in addition to personal excellence, Miss -Coat is always willing to share her knowledge and expertise with others.|” Sunset fought through a snort to keep going. “|The services she offered to the peer tutor program were a boon to teachers and struggling students alike.|”
Sunset tried to imagine how those tutoring sessions actually went. A stressed-out prep worked on sheet after sheet of math equations or whatever in such thick silence you could hear the hum of the magic lights, while Sugarcoat ignored him completely to work on her own schoolwork – until suddenly, the quiet was cut by her snippy, nasal reprimand: “You rounded up to the millionths instead of the billionths. Start over.”
Even Celestia wasn’t that fussy.
“|I have no doubt Sugarcoat’s academic excellence will translate perfectly into occupational success, and she will have more-than earned it.|
“Yeah, sure. We’ll see.”
“It sounds like this Cinch pony really likes that ‘nag’.”
Sunset snickered. It was just so precious when children swore. “Wouldn’t surprise me. They’re both natural-born desk-jockeys. Put Sugarcoat through a teacher’s college and she could replace Cinch when the old bag kicks the bucket. The Headmare doesn’t really seem like the ‘retiring’ type.”
Sunset tossed a smirk Smolder’s way, but the drake return a tilted stare and an uncomprehending smile. It occurred to Sunset then that Smolder had absolutely no context for anything the pony just said.
Well, it was gonna be a walk to the next place. Might as well bring Smolder a bit up to speed on the kind of loser Cinch was.