Thursday
“Wake up!” A blurry tan shape appeared in front of Trixie’s still sleep encrusted eyes, “You’re going to be late!”
“Wha..?” mutter Trixie blinking, she was lying on something hard, her desk. The shape slowly resolved itself into Ivory Scrolls leaning over her. “I’m not Pokey!” Trixie blurted out jumping pack and falling off her seat. She landed with a heavy thump.
“Of course not. Why would you? Oh..” The Mayor’s cheeks burned red and she seemed to look everywhere apart from into Trixie’s eyes. “About yesterday,” said the Mayor looking awkward.
“What yesterday?” said Trixie picking herself off the ground and peeling a drool encrusted letter off her face “I’ve chosen to forget anything that might have happened yesterday.”
“Thanks.”
“Why are you here anyway? What time is it?”
“The council meeting, you’re needed to break the tie.”
“What tie? When was I told that?”
“I told you yesterday during our meeting.”
“The meeting I’m choosing not to remember?”
“Ah, well you need to hurry, it’ll look bad if you turn up late.”
“Can’t I at least get some coffee first?” said Trixie looking desperately into her kitchen for the life giving substance.
“No time,” cried the Mayor shoving the unicorn out of the door using her head.
Trixie’s trip across the short distance from the residence to the Town hall was one of the quickest she had ever had. The streets were quite full and the sun was high indicating that Trixie had slept for quite a while despite her awkward position. It was mere minutes after the journey had begun before Ivory was pushing Trixie through the door and down the corridors to the council chamber itself.
The chamber itself was not very grand, given its role, but was currently full. The whole eight pony council was present as well as one of the Mayor’s assistants, Crimson Ribbon, taking notes. At present the entire council was staring at her in a rather unfriendly way.
“Glad you could join us Miss Representative,” said Applejack, the Apple trust representative, “Now maybe we can get this over with and back to normal business.”
Trixie took her place at the table and glanced around self-consciously, she was sure she must look a wreck and tried to surreptitiously tidy her mane.
The Mayor took her place as well, “Now that we have Representative Lulamoon present. We can begin the proceedings. In order for her to get better acquainted with the issues, I think we should have the minutes read before a further vote, Crimson if you would be so kind...”
The stallion stood and flipped through his notebook, and began to speak in an emotionless monotone, “Minutes of the 32nd meeting of the Ponyville Town council in the year 1001 AC..”
As the assistant continued to drone on Trixie could feel her adrenaline rush fading and her eyes beginning to droop, the room was very warm. Once this is over I need to find out when the next train to Canterlot is, she thought, Then... forms... return.... gblzzz...
“Representative!”
Trixie jumped in her seat, she had fallen asleep. She turned to the Mayor who had once again awoken her. “What?” she mumbled.
“How do you vote on the matter of the Prohibition act? The council it tried. Councillors Column, Applejack, Delta and Strict have voted against, while Councillors Blue, Pillow, Rich and myself are for. We require you to place the deciding vote. What is the night court’s position in this matter?”
Prohibition, as in no booze? Why hadn’t anyone told me this vote was so important, Trixie thought desperately
“The night court votes against,” announced Trixie.
Everypony looked surprised, even the members of the council she had just supported.
“Are you sure?” asked Filthy Rich.
“Yes?” replied Trixie looking unsure, what had she just voted for?
“Very well,’ said the Mayor looking grave, “The motion to extend the term of the town opt out from the 876 West Everfree prohibition act has failed. From next Monday morning Ponyville will be a dry town.”
Trixie froze in place, her pupils shrinking down into tiny dots at this news. The words ‘dry town’ seemed to echo around her head. She was peripherally aware of the rest of the meeting taking place around her but she didn’t take any of it in. What had she done? No booze, life wouldn’t be worth living any more, she’d be lynched! She was suddenly aware that someone was talking to her, she looked up to see that the room was now mostly empty just herself, Crimson and a green coated unicorn, Councillor Strict Discipline, remained. It was the councillor who was talking.
“I have to say representative, I really didn’t count on your support in this matter, I had believed you ensorcelled by the demon drink. I’m glad you saw sense.”
“Yeh,” mumbled Trixie, “I guess I have hidden sober depths.”
“Well, if you do need anything, I’m in your debt.” Strict trotted out of the room, head high.
“What did I just do?” Trixie asked herself.
“Voted to apply prohibition.” said Crimson, “We’ll technically the entire province has been under prohibition for over a century but we and most of the other towns use a loop hole to opt out each year. I don’t think anyone thought you’d vote against it. I doubt it’ll last long, the mayor can call another vote in a month. But until then I don’t think you’ll be a very popular pony once the town finds out. Still at least the Apple Trust will be selling hard cider next week, their special licence overrules local ordinance, that’ll cushion the blow.”
“Yeh, lucky about the licence,” replied Trixie weakly remembering the document was still on her desk in the residence. “I’ve got to go,” she rushed out of town hall as quickly as her legs would carry her.
****
As soon as she approached her house Trixie saw that something was wrong. The fact that she couldn't see her house was part of the problem. The view of the whole building was blocked by a large covered wagon two stories high. The prongs at the front could hitch up at least a dozen ponies. Such a vehicle would only be used for the heaviest of loads. With a sinking feeling Trixie realised that her full order of forms had arrived.
The team normally pulling the wagon were currently unloading it and as expected crate after crate were piling up around the residence reaching almost to the roof.
Closing her eyes and fighting against the urge to just go somewhere and get drunk while she still could Trixie forced herself to canter towards the organised chaos. “Stop! Stop!” she yelled.
The working ponies carefully avoided her but otherwise ignored her entirely intent on moving more paperwork from the wagon to the ground. “Who’s in charge here?” she shouted.
“That’d be me ma'am,” came a voice from the wagon. Trixie looked up to see an overweight earth pony with a receding mane perched on a seat set at the front of the vehicle. He was wearing a wife beater and a red cap and talking through a mouthful of sandwich. “You representative Lulumoon?” he read from a clipboard.
“Trixie!” she insisted.
“Yeh, Trixie Lulumoon. Got this here form for you to sign for all these forms.” he began to laboriously climb down from his perch, sandwich still clutched in his jaw.
“Look there’s been a mistake, I don’t need all these forms. Just take them back.”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that Miss, see the work order says to bring them here and well if I don’t follow work orders I’ll get into all sorts of trouble back in Canterlot. Just sign here and I can get out of your mane and you can enjoy all your new forms here.”
“I’m not signing anything. I don’t want these forms. Take. Them. Back!”
“Sorry no can do. If you don’t sign for them well I’ll have to say you weren’t here and we left them in a safe place.”
“Safe? They’re all over the street now!”
“That’s safe, everypony can see them so no pony can steal them.”
“There’s rain due this afternoon, I’ll end up with five thousand boxes a papai mache.”
“Well if you signed the form I could ask the colts..”
“Hey!” yelled a particularly burley worker pony.
“Sorry Blossom, colts and filly, to move them into your residence. But unless you do I gots no choice.”
“You can’t treat me like this!” Trixie exclaimed stamping her hoof on the ground, aware how much it made her look like a filly throwing a tantrum, “I’m Luna’s student!”
“Well princess Lulu I guess we’re at an im-pas-se,” he sounded out each syllable separately.
Trixie glared at the slovenly work pony, he looked back with lidded eyes. Trixie looked around quite a crowd of onlookers had built up now although she only recognised a few of the faces. She needed to deal with this before anyone she cared about, or had bet against, turned up.
“Fine,” she sighed in defeat, “Give me the clipboard.”
“Pleasure doing business with you.” said the stallion with a smile as she signed the form.
“Just don’t expect a tip.”
“Ok, colts.” he yelled.
“Hey!”
“And filly. We’re moving all these boxes into the house now.”
There was a grumble from the workers.
“Lulu here will show you where to put it all.”
“Aren't you going to help?” asked Trixie.
“Do I look like a pony who isn’t lazy?”
“Yes,” she said weakly, “or no. Whichever gets you to work.”
“Sorry, I only drive the cart and occasionally shout encouragement, everything else is management. I’m sure you can manage.” With that he climbed back up to the wagon, stretched out and apparently fell asleep.
Grinding her teeth and muttering to herself Trixie walked over to the herd of worker ponies. She instructed them to place the boxes in the basement and when that quickly filled to bursting, the office, then the kitchen, then wherever there was space. Work stopped for the mandatory hours lunch break during noon when the labourers all crowded into the residence and devoured their way through most of the tea, coffee and biscuit supply.
After the break they all returned to work. Eventually they were forced to empty some of the crates to slightly reduce the space they took up. Eventually, after several hours work just as the first drops of rain were falling the last of the boxes were packed away. The residence was literally bulging at the seams, the basement was a solid block of paper and the office had a single path, only just wide enough for a single pony to pass, free between towers of paper reaching to the ceiling.
The teamsters waved as they left and hitched themselves up to the large wagon. The foreman seemed to awake for the first and started to pick up the ranes. “Ok, Stallions,” he yelled.
“Hey!”
“And mare. Let’s get going we need to be back in Canterlot by tonight.” He gave a tug and the wagon started to make a slow turn, straight through the fence surrounding the residence which collapsed. Some of the watching ponies stomped in approval at the entertainment.
Trixie watched with resignation as the wagon ignoring the damage and turned down the high street before slowly picking up speed and disappearing into the distance.
****
Trixie dragged herself into the residence and looked for a place to collapse until her head stopped spinning. All around her piles of forms swayed gently in place. The sofa was covered in paper but with some effort she, if not cleared it, at least managed to make a pony shaped nest in it for her to curl up in. She closed her eyes for a moment and when she opened them several hours had passed. With a curse she staggered out of the bed of paper almost upsetting another pile a forms in the process. She checked the time, if she left now she might just catch the last train. Most of the offices in Canterlot would be open all night so she should be able to sort something out when she got there.
Energised by her plan Trixie rushed out of the door towards the train station slamming the door behind her. The breeze thus created slightly unbalanced a large pile of forms which gently but inevitably, like a glacier, started to slip sideways towards its neighbour only to be stopped by a blue aura as Trixie rushed back into the office. Straightening the pile she clambered towards her desk and lifted the forms covering it to search under them. When she didn’t find what she was looking for she lifted the desk itself to search under there. Finally she found the Apple Trust paperwork, grasped it in her mouth and ran back to the door, closing the door gently this time.
Running to the station she was once again thankful that Raindrops had insisted she start exercising, so much of her life seemed to involve running to or from things nowadays. Just as she arrived she could see the last train starting to pull out of the station. Frantically her horn glowed and a large pile of rubble appeared on the line. With a cry from the driver and a hiss of steam the train pulled to a sudden stop. Many of the passengers were picking themselves up as Trixie jumped into the last carriage and the conductor gave her an evil look, “Sorry,” she muttered as she took a seat and the train started to move off again.
****
The train journey went without incident, although tempted to try to sleep Trixie decided to stay awake. Given the way her day had gone if she fell asleep she’d wake up in the Crystal Empire. Instead she planned her nights work. First to the office responsible for the alcohol licence, hopefully that would be enough to appease the population of Ponyville once they found out about the prohibition thing. Once that was done she’d see about getting all those forms removed from her house, then catch an early train back and forget this entire nightmarish week. She didn’t think she’d ever appreciated what Pokey did before, she’d have to make sure he never found out about all this.
It was dark by the time the train pulled into Canterlot station and the city had been awake for several hours. Pushing past the crowd of commuters Trixie started to orientate herself when she spied a familiar red maned brown coated stallion only a few yards away deep in conversation with a white mare. Greengrass, Trixie though, she looked for a place to hide only to have the Duke walk straight past her without batting an eyelid. She stood stunned for a moment before catching a glimpse of herself in a window, and nearly reared back in horror. No wonder Greengrass hadn’t recognised her she didn’t recognise herself, she looked a wreck. She realised that she hadn’t washed all day and her mane looked like birds could nest in it, her normally immaculate coat was ruffled and her eyes were sunken. Before she could do anything she’d need to tidy herself up, she briefly considered getting a room at a hotel but she didn’t have the time, instead she decided to do what she could in the station rest rooms.
A distinctly better looking Trixie exited the washrooms a bit later, she had managed to get her mane under control and tidy her coat somewhat. Filled with renewed purpose she set off to obtain the alcohol licence only to realise she had no idea where she would go to do that. Thinking for a moment she decided to start at the castle itself, there should be someone there who could help and if nothing else she might meet up with Money Penny and give her a piece of her mind and maybe a hoof where the sun doesn’t shine.
Trudging through the city she quickly found herself at one of the smaller gates into the castle, there was no need to draw too much attention to herself after all. Despite its position it was still guarded by a strangely familiar pair of pegasus guards, she read their badges and felt her heart sink.
“Evening officers Moonlight Smiles and Frolicsome Meadowlark,” she sighed, “Here’s my ID.” she handed over her papers.
“Trixie,” said Moonlight his eyes flicking from side to side, “Are you alone?” His partner dropped into a combat stance looking around.
Trixie grinned evilly, “Well I can’t see anything else around can you? But you never know when an invisible bear might turn up. Now can you gentlecolts give me a hoof?”
“What can we do for you?”
“I’m looking for the office where you get licences for selling alcohol.”
“Going professional are you? I thought you just liked drinking the stuff.”
“I don’t touch alcohol myself,” said Moonlight, “My body is a temple.”
“I think that’s one of the offices over in Clover square?” said Frolicsome.
“Yeh, I had to go there to get the paperwork for my sister’s wedding, took ages, and then it was all wasted when that good for nothing groom didn’t turn up. If I ever get my hooves on him, I’ll..” he snarled.
“Calm down Moonie, you know it’s bad for your blood pressure.” said his partner soothingly.
“I just get so angry, she was crying for weeks and to leave her in her condition. What are we going to do when the foal’s here?”
Frolicsome have his partners a wing hug, “I’m sure you’ll manage, I’ll do what I can to help.” he turned to Trixie, “Sorry about this, representative, he’s very close to his sister.”
Feeling awkward Trixie started to sidle away from the pair as Frolicsome started to nuzzle Moonlight, “Thanks for that, I’ll just be off now. I hope your sister feels better.” with that she cantered off into the city.
It didn’t take long for her to find Clover Square, it was one of the major bureaucracy hubs in the city outside of the castle itself. The building had been opened a few hundred years ago when the administration needs of Equestria had outstripped the space in the castle. Ponies were swarming over the buildings like insects carrying paperwork from office to office, running the organs of state.
In a surprisingly short period of time she located the room she was looking for, it was full of some of the most board ponies she had ever seen. At the far end was a board stating ‘’Please wait until your number is called’ She walked over to the receptionist and took a number ‘172’ she checked the board, it currently read 84, she could be here for hours.
She turned to the receptionist and gave what she thought was a winning smile, “Look, I’m in a bit of a hurry here, is there any way I can get this sorted out now?”
The receptionist looked up from filing her hooves, “No,” she said.
“Look I’m a representative, doesn’t that count for something?”
“No.”
“I’m Luna’s personal student, for Luna’s sake,” yelled Trixie.
“No.”
“I’m one of the elements of Harmony, I saved you from Corona.”
“Well in that case,” the receptionist leaned forward over her desk, “No. Anyway it’s time for my break I’ll be back in half an hour.”
“Fine, but just see if I save the world next time Corona attacks.” Fuming Trixie slumped into a chair and watched as the clock slowly ticked away the hours.