//------------------------------//
// Chapter 1 - Two Background Ponies Between Jobs 
// Story: Two Background Ponies Go On An Adventure 
// by Piccolo Sky 
//------------------------------//


“Two Background Ponies Go on an Adventure”


The sun crossed the distant peaks of the majestic mountains of Equestria, slowly lighting up the magnificent city of Canterlot. The rays of the sun began to streak over the city itself soon after, leaving the shadow of the hills and covering it with light. And as it did, everyone began to rise up to go about a new day.
Ponies got out to start picking up their papers. Others were already out for morning jogs or helping their foals get ready for school. The majority, however, were getting ready for work. The local shops were opening up. Window shutters were being pushed aside, owners were going out and sweeping their walks, and everything was getting set up for another day in the peaceful hamlet community. It was a day just like so many others, with everypony waking up happy, eager, refreshed, and ready to head out into the world.
…Almost everypony.
In one of the larger buildings in town, not nearly as nice or aesthetic as the other stand-alone houses, resided an apartment complex. And up in one apartment in particular, things were getting off to a rocky start.
The apartment wasn’t very well maintained. Definitely lower income. The walls were a bit old, stained, and with chipped paint. The ceiling showed a touch of water damage and the floors were worn. However, the apartment itself was the true mess. Bits of leftover snack wrappers, three days worth of meal dishes, and toys everywhere. Mixed in with it were a few other things that definitely belonged to older people, but the house was honestly a mess. At the moment, two foals were at the kitchen table, both of them having bowls of cereal but spending their time throwing the pieces of cereal at each other as they went about trying to egg each other into getting into a fight. There was a third one running in and out, with a mare chasing him around as she did so.
After a while, a green-colored stallion, hastily putting a workshirt on using nothing but his teeth, and with the cutie mark of a Find-the-Difference picture began to walk into the room.
“Farrah? Have you seen my-OW!”
He suddenly winced in pain, looking down to his hoof. He lifted it up, and saw that a small metal figurine toy of a wagon had gotten lodged there, and stuck so bad to the tender part of his foot that it adhered to it. Quickly, he gave it a few shakes to knock it loose and to the ground, before looking back up to the boys.
“Guys, come on!” He yelled. “I told you to pick up your toys, not leave them right in front of my door!”
“Piss off!” One of the kids yelled.
“Screw you!” The other shouted.
He frowned. “How many times have I told you not to use that language?” He shouted back as he walked further in.
The other colt ran by, making sure to stomp on the green stallion’s other foot as he did so, causing him to recoil in more pain and nearly give out some expletives of his own. The mare soon ran by after him.
“Don’t yell at my kids, Carl. You aren’t their father.” She stated as she went by.
He looked to her in disbelief. “What am I supposed to do when they swear, Farrah? They just insulted me to my face! "
"For Celestia's sake, Carl, you're supposed to be an adult... Besides, it’s your fault.” She simply said as she finally caught her third foal and began to wash his face. “You’re the one who always reads those things with bad language. I at least make sure they have some sort of wholesome atmosphere not filled with adult content...” She trailed off as she saw the kids at the table fighting. 
“You two don’t knock it off, I’m going to knock the sh't out of both of you! You are pissing me off now!”
Carl rolled his eyes and groaned on hearing this. "Yeah, real foal-appropriate..." He grumbled as he limped along. He looked to the table. “Have you seen my name tag?”
“No.”
He looked to the kids. “How ‘bout you guys? Any of you seen Uncle Carl’s name tag?”
They ignored him and kept fighting with each other, one of them actually taking their bowl of cereal and throwing it at the other one…splashing milk and cereal all over him, the chair, and the floor. He groaned and continued to look for it.
“None of you moved it, did you?”
“Don’t blame the fact you can’t find your own name tag on them, Carl.” Farrah interjected as she kept cleaning.
“I told you all a hundred times not to touch my name tag.”
“I’ve told you a thousand times to keep it where they can’t get to it. Besides, Carl…you’re a quality control operator at a horseshoe plant. It’s not like anyone cares where you are in that factory.”
“Yeah…thanks a lot for validating my existence, Farrah…” Carl grumbled as he moved over to the coffee pot. “They want me to always wear my name tag to work. Work, you know? The thing that some of us do in order to make money and keep a place to live in? As opposed to sitting around their brother’s house for three months? Not even cleaning up after their own kids…?”
“Carl, I told you a dozen times already…” Farrah said with a sigh as she left her oldest alone and went back to making school lunches on part of the kitchen counter. Carl, on his part, began to look for a mug in the cabinet. “I don’t want to get a job in Ponyville when I’m just going to be moving back to my home in Gallopton and having to go back to work there.”
“Yeah…when exactly are you moving back, again? And how are you going to buy a house when you don’t have any money saved?”
“Carl! I told you I’ll head back when the insurance check comes! You don’t like it, call my insurance agent!”
“…You could call your insurance agent…” He muttered. “…I told the landlord I’d only have four other people living with me for a couple months. It’s been four.” He paused. “There’s no mugs up here.”
He moved to the sink next and looked at it…and soon froze. He turned back to her.
“Farrah, you didn’t do the dishes last night. I’ve got an entire sink full of dirty dishes.”
“I had to help No-Neck with his homework. It ran late.”
Carl felt like facehooving. “I am at work all day. You are here almost all day, every day. The one thing I asked you to do…”
“It was hard work! You think I want him to grow up to be a quality control operator like you?” Farrah answered as she began to put the lunches in bags. “Maybe if you’d stop nitpicking me and worry more about your own job you would have gotten that promotion.”
The green stallion sighed. “…You know what? Forget it. I hate caffeine anyway. I only wanted some coffee so I wouldn’t overload on one of Marble Creamery's Shakes before I went out for cookies with Sam this afternoon.”
The mare sighed. “That’s your problem, Sam. That’s why you are going absolutely nowhere in life. You’re still sitting around with that guy from high school eating cookies at least once a week. Most people would be looking to see if they could find a better job or look into starting their own business or at least getting a better apartment…but oh no, not Incarlsistency. He’s fine being stuck in this rat hole and looking at horseshoes forty hours a week for the rest of his natural life so long as he gets to sit around and eat cookies. Did you even consider coaching No-Neck’s soccer team when I said they were looking for someone? It’d be a chance to meet a mare at least. At this rate, you’re going to die alone, Carl.”
The green stallion frowned as he finally found his name tag and began to put it on. “Trust me, Farrah…the past few months have had one silver lining…and that has been to not be in the least bit afraid of dying without having children.”
As he moved around, No-Neck got his lunch from Farrah and moved to leave. Carl paused long enough to look at him as he passed by. “Hey…does your Uncle Carl get a kiss goodbye?”
The colt answered by passing him by and then lashing out with a rear hoof to nail Carl in the package. Immediately, his eyes went wide in agony as he let out a rush of air, grasped for his middle…and slowly tipped over and fell to the ground. The two younger boys began to laugh out loud at the whole thing while Farrah just kept making the other two lunches. Carl, on his part, had landed on another bunch of toys and so he was in even more pain.
“…I already said I would never have kids. You didn’t have to make sure I wouldn’t.” He groaned after a moment.





Across town, however, a better situation was playing out.
A blue-colored stallion was utilizing a brand new “Tie-dini” he had picked up at the local megamart in town to finish adjusting his own neckware in front of a mirror. After reworking it a few times, he finally had it just about right. He too was getting ready for work at the moment, but had already gotten up early enough to eat and wash, and had his own work saddlebags already organized and loaded near the door. Yet as he finished adjusting, he suddenly heard a knock on the door.
Quickly, he pulled the tie straight. “Just a second!”
His teeth quickly went out, snapped up a pair of reading glasses, and tossed them into the air just so he could get his head underneath them and let them fall on his face in the right position. Once in, he quickly walked over to the front door of his apartment. After doing so, his hoof went out and pressed down on the door latch, and then pulled it back to bring it open. The blue stallion looked out…and immediately blinked in pleasant surprise.
A young, lovely mare was standing on his front step, smiling at him. She was yellow colored with a slightly darker mane braided and put over one side of her neck, resting loosely across her body, with a happy, warm, and friendly look about her. She seemed to glow as she stood there, but especially her cutie mark, which was a pleasant sunbeam poking over a hillside.
The blue stallion soon gave her a smile. “Dawn! Hi!” He said in amazement as he walked out of the doorway slightly. He looked her over, soon noticing she had a small covered basket with her. “What are you doing here? I thought you worked today?”
“I do, but that doesn’t mean I couldn’t stop by to see you off first.” She answered with a grin as she leaned up and gave him a kiss on the cheek. “Today’s the big day for you, right?”
He smiled back. “You bet. The new promotion comes through today. I finally get to be a supervisor. An extra 25% a year.”
“Well, you deserve it. No one busts their butt more at that job than you. Besides, it’s great to hear an Equestrian voice instead of a Pachedermisti on one of those help lines, especially when they always ask you how the weather is in Filidelphia.” 
He chuckled. “Yeah. They don’t even have to look that up. It’s always sunny.”
She turned her head down to her basket. “Anyway…Mr. Supervisor…” She said with a snicker. “I handled lunch for today. I know how much you love my buffalo chicken wraps.”
Sam nearly lit up. “…No way…you’re kidding! Aw, thanks!” He said as he looked down to it. “Man, I love those things! But I know it takes you forever to make them…”
“So what?” Dawn answered. “You’re worth it. I mean…how many other fiancés agree to pay for the wedding?”
“Hey, that’s only fair. I’m getting the big promotion and I’m not about to force your family to pay for it.” Sam maintained. 
The mare’s expression turned to one of concern. “…Now, you’re sure about this, right? I mean, that’s a big financial commitment…”
“Don’t worry about it.” Sam answered, waving a hoof. “It’s something I’m more than happy to handle. It’s a big day for both of us.”
Dawn held a moment, but then smiled, leaned in close, and kissed him on the cheek again. “That’s why I’m the luckiest mare in Ponyville.” Leaning back, she looked back at him. “Now…you know you have to be at my apartment right after work, right?”
Sam gave a nod. “Yeah, I know.”
“You can’t be late. My dad can’t stand ponies who are late.”
“I’ll be there. No problem.”
“Alright, good.” She said with a bit of a sigh of relief. “I’ll tell you right now that dad was a bit…standoffish…when he heard about our engagement when he only met you in Hearth’s Warming Eve cards and letters. But I think hearing that you’re handling the wedding has made him warm up a bit. He sees you as someone really responsible. So…just be calm, and try to make a good impression, since we’re asking him to pretty much ‘go along with this’ now.”
The stallion nodded. “Of course. You know me.”
Dawn nodded, her smile fading a bit more.
“And…don’t mention Carl. He’s got a thing for guys with weird friends.”
Sam sighed. “Don’t worry…I know enough to not try to ruin any first impression with news about Carl.”
She grinned in response. “Great.” She looked to the sky. “Alright, gotta go. I’ll see you tonight. I get a kiss, right?”
The stallion snickered in response as he leaned in close and gave her a peck of his own. “Alright now, get going. Don’t want you getting in trouble for being late and saying it’s because you were dropping off my lunch. That makes us both look bad.”
Dawn giggled a bit, and then turned and began to trot down the road. Sam looked after her a moment, smiling widely with a daydreaming look in his eyes. After a while, however, he exhaled, leaned down, took up the basket, hooked it near his own saddlebags, and then went off as well, whistling: “Zip-A-Dee-Doo-Dah” as he went along.





Carl was more than happy to be out of the house. He was still rather sore from the “low blow” he had gotten from his nephew, but he tried not to think about it. After all, he had decided to deal with it using one of his favorite “pick-me-ups”. In fact, the thought of getting one before he went into work made him feel great. He actually managed to maintain a fairly good speed with his old, used, Hevvy model wagon from eleven years back. He had to, in truth. If he didn’t get there fast enough, he’d never make it to work afterward.
With a bit of growing enthusiasm, he turned a corner and began to go down the road, looking up ahead for the familiar sign he had seen hundreds of times before, of a miniature cow with wings serving up a bucket of fresh-made ice cream…
And immediately his face turned to shock.
The sign for “Marble Creamery” was still in the air, showing the iconic cow, but Carl only had a moment to register it before a beefy stallion pushing a bulldozer shovel head moved up to it and proceeded to knock it over. Surrounding the rest of the site were dozens of demolition ponies, and they had already torn down half of the chain restaurant.
Carl nearly let out a whining gasp before he quickly pulled himself up to it. “Stop! Stop! Stop!” He cried. “What are you doing?!”
Over the sounds of all of the demolition equipment, not many of the workers could hear him. It wasn’t until he was nearly upon the foreman on the side, and coming close to passing through the yellow and black barrier, that the stallion turned to him.
“Sir, I’m going to need you to stay back. This is a hard hat area only.” He stated as he pulled in close.
Carl stopped, but continued to stammer and gape. “How…? Why…? What…?” He shook his head. “What the Hell are you doing?!”
The foreman blinked, looked to the restaurant, and then back to him. “What does it look like we’re doing? We’re tearing down this building.”
“But…but this is ‘Marble Creamery’!”
The foreman simply looked back.
“Marble Creamery!” Carl echoed. “You know…’Marble Creamery’! Home of the tastiest milkshakes available on the fast food circuit! You can’t just ‘tear it down’!”
“Um…yes we can.” The foreman answered. “I don’t know if you’ve been paying attention or not, but ‘Marble Creamery’ took a dive on the market last quarter. They’re only going to be able to stay open on the West Coast. All the other franchises were sold. Didn’t you notice the ‘We’re Closing’ sign they put up a month ago?”
“I thought it was some sort of joke!” Carl retorted. “I thought it was a marketing ploy to get more people to come on! They couldn’t actually close something like that! It has better shakes than Sugarcube Corner!”
“Well…you should have bought more while it was still in business.” The foreman answered as he turned and went back to work.
“I came here every other day!!” Carl shouted back. But it was useless. The foreman was already going back to work. The green stallion stared for a moment longer, before mouthing a curse word and turning away, walking far more slowly and angrily to work.





The first half of Sam’s day went by rather well. As he slipped into his chair and began to get to work as an operator, he had a noticeable spring in his step and pleasant tone to his voice. He was always dutiful and courteous when answering the phone, but today he was far better than usual. His coworkers soon noticed his energy as they passed by his cubicle stall. He was a bit dismayed when he didn’t see a letter waiting for him right away at his station, but he held on none the less. He knew he had this in the bag, after all.
Sam’s immediate supervisor had retired very recently. Yesterday had been his last day at work. Pony resources had been looking for a replacement for a month beforehand. And every time they looked, there was always one pony who stood head and shoulders over all the other operators: Sam Listens-To-Carl’s-Problems. Constantly reached outstanding in every category, from clarity to friendliness. Hadn’t had a single negative customer review his entire time there. Only one to have a perfect score in “diction”. It was clear he knew the job inside and out and could make things happen when they needed to. PR had talked to him four separate times last month, always having good news, and on the last meeting told him they were looking at their new supervisor. Sam was more than looking forward to this. It had been such good news he moved ahead on a loan to take out for a diamond engagement necklace for Dawn as well as the offer to pay for the wedding himself. He knew full well that Dawn’s dad never really liked him…which was why he had stalled a meeting for so long. But now, it seemed as if this would certainly get him in his good graces…to say nothing of having a position in management.
He was in such a good mood, even the irate stallion on the other end of the conch shell headset he had pressed to his skull at the moment couldn’t get him down.
“Sir, I can understand that you’d like the address for a Chuck Wagon, but I need to know what city.” Pause. “Yes sir, but you need to realize that there is more than one Chuck Wagon in Equestria. At the moment, I’m reading at least 20 different names in 5 different major cities alone.” Another pause. “Well it is a very popular name. Can you give me any more information?” Another pause. “…Sir, the fact that he’s a cook does not narrow down your selection very much. Most Chuck Wagons work as cooks except for the occasional wagon-maker and even more rare stallion who throws things for a living.” Another pause. “Alright…I’ll tell you what. What’s the nearest business to him? Find that out, give me a call back, and I can get you an address. Just ask for Sam, alright?” One last pause. “Alright, I’ll talk to you soon, sir. Have a nice day. Good bye.”
As the conversation began to grow close to ending, Sam had become aware that a presence was looming behind him over his cubicle. Noticing that, as soon as he hung up the phone, he swiveled his chair slightly around…and tried not to grimace. Instead, he forced himself to smile.
“…Hello, Pencil.”
Standing at the front of his cubicle, wearing one of his characteristic ties and crew-neck collars, looking out with a very mundane, lazy glare through his wire-rim glasses, his hair neatly combed back and lightly “fluffed”, and with a coffee-cup in one hoof, was the most hated operator in the entire division: Pencil Pusher. Smug, arrogant, annoying, and with a somewhat condescending and patronizing look about him at all times…ponies couldn’t stand him. In spite of the fact that his reviews were always subpar and he wasn’t any “higher” than the rest of them, everyone still had to more or less suck it up and deal with him because he was the son of Paper Pusher, one of the company Vice-Presidents. If anyone caused him any guff, Paper would get word of it and you’d be on the street faster than a Luna prayer card during the Summer Solstice. 
“Hello, Sam…” Pencil responded, his voice always seeming to go slower and more “superior” than anyone else’s. Kind of like a dull hoof on a chalkboard. “Hmm…I’m guessing that you haven’t gotten the memo yet.”
Sam looked up a bit at this. “You mean about my promotion? Yeah…” He looked around a bit. “I thought it was a bit weird that I hadn’t gotten a message yet…but I take it everyone else already knows about me getting promoted to supervisor?”
“Yeah…about that…” Pencil slowly answered. “That…actually didn’t happen.”
Sam froze momentarily. “…Excuse me?” He echoed back more quietly after a moment. “What are you talking about, Pencil?”
“Yeah, that’s another thing…you probably should start calling me, ‘Mr. Pusher’ from now on.” The stallion quietly answered as he sipped his coffee. “I mean, I am your supervisor, after all.”
The blue stallion’s eyes nearly bulged.
“…What?”
“Yeah…I got the news this morning. I’m now supervisor for this division.”
Sam’s jaw loosened. “That…that’s impossible… I mean…I had the best performance reviews! I increased our division’s quality rating by 15% by myself! Pony resources gave me their endorsement after four interviews!”
“Yeah…” Pencil slowly answered. “Well, unfortunately, it seems I still had one thing you didn’t have…namely a dad in upper management. Performance reviews really don’t mean a whole lot when you’ve got that, you know.”
Sam’s jaw nearly hit the ground. He couldn’t believe what he was hearing. This was impossible… After everything he had worked for, all of the good showings he had made…they were just taking the job he earned and giving it to one of the worst employees in the division because he was the son of a vice-president? He had been betting on this promotion for a long time! He had planned the next year of his life around it at this point! He had every indication he was going to get it! And now they were just taking it from him?!
Stay calm…stay calm…
Sam finally managed to pull his jaw up. Although his day had just gone from all sunshine and rainbows to a thunderstorm in only a few seconds, he stayed cool.
“Alright…well…” He forced himself to choke out this next bit. “…Congratulations, Mr. Pusher. And I just hope that you’ll note that I’m due for a mandatory raise now since I didn’t get the promotion.”
“Yeah…about that…” Pencil answered slowly. “Well, turns out when I got this job, they weren’t really giving me the salary I felt I deserved as a supervisor. I talked it over with the Vice President and he agreed with me, but he said that we really didn’t have any budget for any more supervisor raises. In fact, they were planning on eliminating the supervisor position and merging this division with another to save more money if the position called for that kind of money… But, I proposed an excellent solution that my dad…” He paused here, sipped his coffee, and then snickered. “Yeah…I mean the Vice President agreed with. Rather than be forced to take a pay cut in this new situation, we would simply downsize one of the operators. Preferably one whose been here a while that we can replace with someone a lot cheaper…and has a piece of old chewed gum for a cutie mark…”
What little composure Sam had managed to regain began to melt away again as he stared at Pencil in disbelief. He paused only to look at his cutie mark, thinking for a second if it really did look like chewed gum, before turning back. “…Are you telling me I’m being let go?”
“Yeah…if we were ‘letting you go’ we’d have to give you two weeks notice…” Pencil slowly responded. “But I don’t really want to have to wait on my first paycheck, so…you know how you don’t polish your hooves before you come into work? Well…I convinced Pony Resources that you were neglecting a professional appearance for a chronic period…so…yeah, they agreed that’s grounds to just fire you so we don’t have to give you benefits.”
“What?!” Sam nearly shot back.
“Oh! And…” Pencil, not noticing Sam’s shock and ever-growing panic, looked to the nearest clock. “Yeah…since you’re getting this notice at 11:58, you haven’t yet put in a half-day of work, so we don’t owe you for today.”
Sam was quivering all over at this point, looking like he had just had a stroke. Yet in spite of that, he blinked a few times, then stared at Pencil.
“…You waited to fire me until two minutes before noon just so you wouldn’t have to give me a check for four hours of work?”
Pencil gave a slight smile. “Yeah…that kind of thinking is why I’m a supervisor now. Saving the company money every chance we get. So…clean out your desk…one hour…then we call security. Feel free to use me as a reference, although I will have to tell a future employer that we had to fire you due to chronic lack of professionalism. Have a nice day.”
Pencil turned and walked away.
Sam was left sitting there staring blankly. He honestly didn’t think he could have looked more shocked if a second head had suddenly grown from his torso.





No pony ever looked terribly happy to be on the quality control line of Ponyville’s horseshoe plant, regardless of what time of day it was. So after lunch, as the personnel went off of break and returned to their stations on the line, they all seemed rather listless as the whistle went off, and the horseshoes began to come on down the line. They began to look over the various size shoes as they came down, examining them all, picking them up from time to time, occasionally pulling out a truly defective one. In short, a mundane job that could really drive you mad unless you could keep a good attention span.
However, as the quality control operators went back to one, one worker raised an eyebrow to nearby and saw one of the workers looking rather irate. He glared at each new shoe, occasionally smacking it off of the line all together rather than removing it, and muttering to himself as it went along. After a time, the worker grimaced.
“Damnit, ‘Sistency. You’re not going to have one of your episodes again, are you? This is just how you looked like that day you went on that rant about how 80% of the ponies in town were twins or triplets.”
He groaned and looked to the worker. “…They shut down the Marble Creamery in town.”
“Yeah, so what?”
“So what?! Where in the world am I supposed to get a good cookies ‘n cream milkshake now?”
He sighed. “Anywhere else that makes a good shake?”
“Nowhere else makes a good shake.” Carl retorted as he looked away from the line and to the worker. “Making the perfect shake is an art as well as a science. All other shakes only approximate it or ‘come close’.”
The worker sighed, realizing Carl was at it again.
“First, the cookie. You don’t pulverize it into powder, but you don’t leave the whole damn cookie in their sitting on top. You break it into nice pieces and you make it evenly suspended throughout the shake so that the smaller cookies bits float into it and soak up the shake just enough to drink them while the big pieces slowly settle to the bottom. You use the natural ice cream that’s heavy on the cream with natural whipped cream on top, and you put that one fresh cookie on top. Fresh, not stale. And the consistency is as thick as you can get it but you can still drink it through a wide-brimmed straw, so you don’t exhaust your throat trying to drink it. And as you drink it, the cookie just slowly settles into the shake and soaks it up, so that when you’re done you’ve got nice cookie pieces at the bottom soaked with shake that you eat with a spoon, and it’s just heavenly perfection.”
The worker merely rolled his eyes. “Just go to ‘Speedy’s’. They make hand-spun milkshakes.”
Carl nearly glared daggers at the co-worker.
“…I’m going to pretend I didn’t hear you say that. Let’s get one thing perfectly straight. ‘Speedy’s’ does not make milkshakes. Not by any stretch of the imagination. What it makes is milk blended with shaved ice. They don’t have the right to say that they make even a bad milkshake. That whole ‘hand-spun’ crap? Just some marketing ploy to sucker in gullible ponies.”
“They wouldn’t say hand-spun if they weren’t actually hand-spun, man.”
“They are hand-blended, spun out with no love or care by ponies who have Cutie Marks for gas station attendants that somehow ended up working the food service industry…and they’re still just milk and ice. They say that crap just to make ponies think they’ve got a good milkshake when all they have is a piece of sh’t.”
The worker didn’t press it anymore, knowing Carl would never shut up if he didn’t drop it. Carl himself continued to irately go about his own job. They both did so for a moment longer until another co-worker moved in next to Carl…letting out a loud slurp. This caused the green stallion to look up…and froze at what he saw. The stallion was drinking out of a cup marked ‘Speedy’s’, complete with the dumb little kid Pegasus that had wings on all of his hooves as well as his body.
Carl stared at it, still as a statue. The other worker looked up to him as the new one set his cup down.
“Sorry I’m late. Just finishing up my dessert. It’s a really good cookies ‘n cream shake they’ve got at ‘Speedy’s’.”
Carl continued to glare silently. The worker near him raised an eyebrow. He looked to Carl, then back to him.
“…Oh really?”
“Yup. They’re the only ones who make hand-spun milkshakes.”
Carl began to quiver a bit.
“Oh yeah? How good are they?” The worker asked.
“The best. Hooves down.” He answered. “No one makes them any better. Far and away better than any other shake.”
“…Even the ones at Marble Creamery?”
“Especially better than those.” The worker asked. “They leave pieces of cookie in those. It’s such a waste.”
Carl was definitely quivering now, his green color turning slightly red.
“Is that so?” The first worker stated, looking to Carl with a smug smile. “Well…I think the opinion currently stands two-to-one, friend. You sure you’re just not nostalgic for an out-of-date brand?”
The green stallion didn’t say anything else.
Instead, he snatched up the largest passing horseshoe from the conveyer and smacked the co-worker in the head with it.





Needless to say, Sam wasn’t feeling too well when he finally made it to Dawn’s apartment.
He had spent most of the past four hours in a perpetual state of dread and horror. He was sunk. He couldn’t even finish making the payments for the engagement collar he had given her. And until he could get a new job, he couldn’t even afford his rent, let alone a wedding. He had no savings and his pitiful checking account had a grand total of 350 bits last time he looked. That wasn’t enough to even rent a decent coach. 
Eventually, however, he came to a decision. He repeated it to himself as he stood at the door, a bit quietly.
“Alright…Sam…you are just going to have to ‘stallion up’ and tell her clearly that you don’t have the money. Plans change…it looks like I won’t be able to pay for the wedding after all.” He paused. “…I could find another job. Even…with this bad market…I’m sure it wouldn’t be too terribly bad…right? And…we’ll just have to postpone the wedding until I get one if she doesn’t want to do that. You know…sh’t happens. You just got to deal with it.”
With that in mind, he inhaled deeply and exhaled, looking at the door. He managed to get out a bit early. After all…he wasn’t giving them any more work he wasn’t getting paid for. Hopefully that meant he could catch Dawn alone. If so, then maybe he could explain the whole situation before her dad arrived, and they could avoid a large misunderstanding. With that in mind, he exhaled, leaned over, pulled on the chain with his teeth, and caused the bell to ring. After that, he stood there and waited.
Soon after, the door opened, revealing Dawn. She lit up on seeing him.
“Sam! You’re here early!”
He swallowed. “Yeah…Dawn, I…”
“This is great!” She immediately cut off. “Dad got in early too and I was afraid that I’d have to keep him waiting, but you’re here so soon! Come on in!”
He blinked. “…Hold on, what?”
Before he could protest, Dawn quickly moved out behind him and gave him a nudge, beginning to push him inside.
“And you’re never going to believe this…but guess what mom did!”
Blinking, confused, and now being pushed in, Sam looked about. “Er…what?”
“She thought since you were going to pay for the wedding, she bought us tickets for a ten day cruise in the Meadowterranean for the honeymoon! Can you believe it?”
Sam, now inside, nearly felt his jaw hit the ground as Dawn closed the door. “Wait…what?!”
“I mean…I told her, ‘Mom, you really don’t have to do all that.’…” She explained. “But she said she liked you so much all the times she’s met with you…she wanted to show how much she appreciated this. Besides, since she’s not paying anything, she said she could afford it easily. Still, I tried to tell her, we don’t need that, but she said, ‘Oh no, it’s already done. Set right for the day after the wedding.’”
“Huh?!”
“Don’t worry! Mom got the date we planned right. I know, I was scared she’d get mistaken too, especially since the tickets were non-refundable.”
Sam nearly stammered on hearing that last word.
Dawn snickered as she leaned over and gave him a peck on the cheek. “Come on, you’re worth it.” She said as she did so. After leaning back, however, her face fell a bit. “Although…she did have a terrible time trying to talk dad into it. He’s still a bit on edge about the whole thing, so it’s a good thing you’re here early. Just make sure he knows that just because you’re paying for the wedding doesn’t mean you’re going to be ‘cheap’ about it, and it will be all fair.”
Sam’s normally blue color was practically teal by now. He was so stunned at all of this news that he couldn’t say anything else. As for Dawn, seemingly oblivious to this, she turned her head to the rest of the apartment.
“Dad, it’s Sam! He came here early! Come say hi!”
Sam continued to stare blankly for a moment…before he felt he heard the house shaking slightly and the floor rattling a bit. At that, he blinked a few times, then looked to the floor, and then to the hall leading into the apartment entrance. Being a more “elegant” and upscale apartment than Sam’s by far, it was almost house-like in setup…and as a result he was able to see his potential father-in-law coming from a ways, and he struggled not to let out a panicked squeak.
Dawn Charger’s father, Mason “Stonewall” Charger, was a minotaur of a pony, solidly built and looking like he could grind the skulls of adult stallions into grist between his hooves…or in his teeth. His jaw was like a piece of granite, his eyes were set back in his head, and his hair was sharply cut…giving him a look between a movie monster and a drill sergeant. He seemed to cast a shadow about him even as he moved forward, although the light was behind Sam and not him. As he neared them and halted, he fixed Sam with a look that seemed like a tiny drill bit trying to go into him.
“So…you’re Sam.” He stated in an indifferent, non-happy, non-impressed tone.
Sam tried not to cringe. “Um…yes sir, I mean, yes, Mr. Charger.” Swallowing  and steeling his courage, he held out a hoof to him.
Stonewall didn’t even seem to notice it. “My watch has 4:59 PM, Sam.”
The blue stallion was a bit puzzled by what that had to do with anything, and lowered his hoof. “Um…”
The older stallion’s eyes narrowed. “It’s not even 5 PM. Are you in the habit of cutting work early whenever you feel like it?”
Sam paled a bit more. “Well…sir, I…”
“Oh, dad…” Dawn groaned, moving in next to him. “You know you always set your watch too fast. Sam just wanted to be here quickly so he could meet you.”
The blue stallion, at the moment, wanted to be on the other side of Ponyville away from the intimidating horse. However, he forced himself to smile again. “Uh, yeah! Actually, I was interested in your business, Mr. Charger. Dawn told me you’re actually in a new company?”
Stonewall lightened up a bit at that, but only a little. “Oh yeah, Sam. Hunting equipment.”
“So…like, snares and traps and-”
“Oh no, something more direct. Something new.” Stonewall answered. “We call it a ‘rifle’. It’s like a long pipe with some wood on one end. You put that end near your shoulder, aim the other end of the pipe at whatever you’re hunting, and pull back this lever. Fires off a piece of metal we call a ‘bullet’ and whatever you’re aiming for falls down dead if it hits them in a vital spot.”
Sam looked a bit disturbed, to be honest, on hearing that. “So…uh…you just kill whatever you’re hunting right there?”
Stonewall shrugged. “Might as well cut out the middleman, so to speak. Easier to drag a dead carcass on a travois than store it in a cage. More efficient. Hunters love them. We’ve sold 8,000 over the past two months alone. It was an idea I got while in the Royal Guard of Canterlot.”
Now the blue stallion really blinked. “Royal Guard of Canterlot?”
“Oh yes!” Dawn threw in. “I forgot to tell you. Daddy used to be in the Royal Guard! He made it all the way to Major!”
Stonewall couldn’t help but smile a bit and shrug. “Well, if you have any amount of determination and discipline, it’s not that hard. You just have to really stick with it and never settle for less.”
“That’s where he got his nickname ‘Stonewall’.” Dawn explained.
Sam risked a bit of a smile. “Oh…I’m guessing because the enemy could never get past you?”
“Actually it was because my favorite method of dispatching an opponent was by driving their heads straight through a stone wall.” The older stallion responded. “Very effective too. Even a chimera’s skull will be in bits after that.”
What little confidence Sam had been regaining disappeared, leaving his face frozen in its last position as a “mask” to avoid his growing terror.
“You do any hunting, Sam?”
He blinked a moment. “…Excuse me?”
“Hunting, Sam. Do you do any? Did your parents ever take you out?”
He hesitated a bit, and then shook his head. “Er…no sir.”
Stonewall’s face fell a little. “I’m not surprised. Almost all stallions brought up in your generation are kept at home, never encouraged to get out there and get their hands dirty. But there are still some who know about guts and toughness and responsibility, though. Heck, a lot of the guys I know in the Royal Guard have ponies like that. I tell Dawn about them all the time…what they’ve done…how many bits they make… On that note, Sam…you play any sports?”
Sam swallowed a bit. “I…did back in high school.”
“Football?”
“…No.”
“Wrestling?”
“…No.”
“Baseball?”
Sam swallowed. “Er, no.”
“Basketball?”
Sam wanted to crawl into a hole in the floor by now. “No.”
Stonewall looked a bit confused. “…I’m drawing a blank. What else is there?”
Dawn interjected. “He was great at tennis, dad.”
Sam nearly passed out at the revelation. Stonewall raised an eyebrow. “…Tennis?”
“Er…yeah.” Sam reluctantly admitted.
Dawn, realizing that this wasn’t going over well, quickly gave more support. “Dad, tennis is really demanding. You have to be able to run almost continuously, and change direction all the time. I couldn’t go half as long as Sam. He actually placed third in state.”
Stonewall continued to stare at Sam. “Sounds great.” He said in a rather mundane tone. “You know…Sam, for some weird reason…I always had the idea that only mares were allowed to play tennis in high school.” Pause. “Learn something new every day, eh?”
Dawn swallowed a bit herself now. “Dad…Sam…why don’t we head into the kitchen and have some tea, and Sam can tell you all about what we planned to have for the wedding?”
“Actually, Dawn,” Stonewall interjected. “I’d like to talk with Sam privately for a moment in the guest room.”
Sam looked to Dawn at that. When she was sure Stonewall was looking to her as well, he gave her a head shake to indicate “no”. However, Dawn managed to bite back her own anxiety and gave a nod.
“Uh, sure dad! It’ll take me a few to get the tea on anyway.”
Stonewall turned back to the stallion, who barely finished shaking his head in time. “Sam…right this way.”
The much larger stallion turned and began to lead the way, and Sam could have sworn he felt the temperature drop a few degrees as he passed…even a slipstream. However, he bit down and followed after him. Dawn’s apartment, being as nice as it was, was large enough to where they actually had to walk a bit before they came to the doorway leading into the room. On doing so, Stonewall came to a stop, turned to him, and indicated onward.
“After you.” He said with only the faintest hint of the smile.
Sam suppressed a swallow, and then advanced to the door. Very reluctantly, he opened it up and began to step inside. Sam had never been in this room before. After all, Dawn only kept it for out-of-town guests, and Sam wasn’t the kind of pony who nosed around in every nook and cranny he could find. 
The lights were off in the interior, and the only thing that made Sam more uncomfortable than inching past the monolithic pony standing at the entry way was to go before him into a dark, enclosed room with no windows. He tried not to let the sound of him swallowing go too loud as he went in. Once finally inside, however, he quickly went for the light switch. He pressed it a moment later.
Almost immediately, he wished the room was dark again.
The room was done almost entirely in “military style”, with the furnishings, colors, and everything about it representing a cold, hard, military mentality only found in the strictest of the Royal Guards of Canterlot. Yet far more disturbing than that was that the walls were lined with numerous hunting trophies, posing body parts of everything from hydras…at least seven of their heads…to rabbits with big pointy teeth. It also seemed to have enough furnishings to practically be a live-in space on its own. In addition to the bed, there was actually a mini-bar, fridge, and a table and chairs.
Sam blinked for a few moments, before he jumped on hearing the door slam shut behind him like the entrance to a torture chamber. He nearly snapped to the towering Stonewall as he walked by him. He didn’t even look to Sam as he moved over to the table on one side.
“Dawn’s such a sweet girl…she makes sure this room is done up just the way I like it. Almost a home away from home whenever I visit. She’s not big on hunting, but she knows I like the trophies. She’s very considerate like that.” He said as he reached a chair. “Have a seat, Sam.”
The blue stallion visibly swallowed again, and then moved over to Stonewall, feeling somewhat like he was nearing a fully awake and hungry lion. Eventually, he reached a chair, but only slowly sat down inside of it. Stonewall sat across from him…but even in this small space it looked like he was a judge towering over him. It didn’t help that Sam was sitting posed in between a set of what looked like young adult dragon claws on either side of him, talons outstretched for his body. He looked about a bit, and moistened his lips.
“It’s, um…very impressive, Mr. Charger. You…look like you get around quite a bit…”
Stonewall, in response, folded his hands in front of him under the table, leveling a firm gaze at him.
“Sam…what do you say we cut the bullsh’t?”
Sam’s feeble attempts to be more conversational immediately aborted. Stonewall, in response, continued to hold him in his gaze.
“I’m going to be blunt and honest with you because I never believed in being untruthful. You are not my first, second, third, fourth, or even twentieth choice I would have for my daughter. Dawn is the nicest, smartest, most wonderful filly in the world and she deserves somepony a hundred times better than you. When I heard that she decided to marry a low-income operator who never went to college, I honestly thought it was a joke. When I learned she was serious, I was so angry that I will not sully my daughter’s dwelling with some of the expletives I uttered. Let’s be honest…would you be happy for your child if you heard they were marrying some mail service representative who had zero prospects for the future?”
Sam had been progressively sinking in his chair during this diatribe, feeling smaller by the second. At this pause, he manage a weak smile. “Well…don’t flatter me, sir. Tell me how you really feel.” 
Stonewall continued to glare at him as if his eyes could burn holes in his skull.
The blue stallion swallowed. “Oh Celestia, why did I just say that…?” He muttered.
“The only reason I ended up consenting instead of getting a few of my old army buddies together to give you a marine-grade ass-beating to ensure you never laid eyes on my daughter ever again was because Dawn sent me a letter saying you were not only moving into a supervisor position but you were going to pay for the wedding yourself.” Stonewall continued darkly. “And I’ll admit…I’m impressed in that regard. Under any other circumstance, I would say it shows you have at least some ambition in your life for greater things and that you’re willing to take on some responsibility and sacrifice. I might even say you’re somepony, someday I might be able to tolerate being in my family.”
Sam supposed that was kind of a compliment…but he hung on the wording. “…And…what makes this a different set of circumstances?”
Stonewall’s eyes narrowed. “I’m not exactly sure that I can trust that letter. For whatever reason that only Celestia knows, my daughter seems intent on marrying you. And I brought her up to never quit until she gets what she wants, which means so long as she’s fixated on you, she won’t stop until she gets it. I can’t put it past her that she’s not lying to me.”
Sam felt himself pale again. Stonewall continued to stare.
“Now…she wasn’t lying…was she, Sam?”
The blue stallion actually hesitated, and cursed himself for doing so. He thought of how he had been fired. Thought about how his future, his dreams, his plans, and his financial standing were now completely up in smoke. She also thought of Stonewall leaning over him, in that room full of trophies with only one escape route…
In the end, he spoke again. “Of course not, Mr. Charger. Promotion came through today and everything. You’re looking at the newest supervisor.”
Stonewall said nothing. He continued to stare at the blue stallion. He didn’t look at all convinced, which made the stallion nervous. After a moment, he leaned back slightly, and began to reach down to his side.
“Sam, I’d like to show you my latest hunting trophy. Brought it with me to Ponyville to show my daughter. Bagged him in the desert to the south. My first chimera.”
He brought up a burlap bag, and reached inside it and felt around. A moment later, he pulled out a polished, varnished, white skull…of what looked very much like a pony’s head.
Sam had to struggle to keep from stammering on seeing it…and hearing it click as it was set down right in front of him.
“Came out good, didn’t it?” He asked. “Just look at that.”
The blue stallion tried not to quiver. “S…Sir…that looks like a pony’s skull…”
Stonewall looked to Sam a moment, looked down to the skull, then back up to Sam. “Nah. It’s a chimera, Sam. I’d know.”
Sam swallowed again. “The…the teeth are all flat…”
“It’s a chimera, Sam.” Stonewall calmly answered. “I know my animals, believe me.”
“There’s a gap there in the dentition…the jaw is too thick for a predator…”
The older stallion let out a chuckle as he leaned back. “Sam, this is silly. It’s a chimera. What are you trying to say? That it’s not a chimera? That it’s the skull of the last deadbeat, would-be suitor who bought my daughter an engagement collar and then got it signed in her name so that when he skipped on her he left her with a 1,000 bit bill she couldn’t pay and so I and a bunch of my old military connections arranged for him to ‘disappear’ and I had his head cut off, polished, and sealed and now I carry his head around as a warning that I can make the exact same thing happen to any other deadbeats who try and take advantage of my daughter?”
Sam felt his heart practically pounding in his ears at this point. As he did, Stonewall’s smile vanished and he leaned in close again, growing dark once more.
“Sam…I’ll make a deal with you. If you’re lying to me and you come clean now, I’ll let you go away and never come back. I never want you to talk to my daughter again, but I’ll let you walk.”
The stallion paused only a moment. He nearly considered confessing. Yet as much as he was terrified right now, he didn’t want to lose Dawn. She was the most wonderful thing in the Equestria to him, and she was the only thing he had left after today. As much as the logic part of his brain said no, his heart won out. Finally, he shook his head.
“I’m…I’m really not lying, sir. I’ll pay for the wedding.”
Stonewall stared a moment longer, but then finally nodded.
“Alright.” He finally stated a bit flatly. “We’ll see whether you’re lying or not in the coming weeks, I’m guessing. But for right now, consider yourself ‘tentatively accepted’. Let’s go have the tea.”





Despite the normally cheery and colorful atmosphere of the café in Ponyville, Carl was treating it like a dive bar at the moment. A frown on his face, half-slumped in his chair, and using a hoof to hold an ice pack next to a swollen eye, he simply glared at a glass in front of him with a dollup of whipped cream and a cherry. He nearly wrinkled his face in disgust as he slowly turned it with his straw.
After a time, a unicorn waiter walked by. At this point, Carl turned to her.
“Hey…hey, waiter!” 
The waiter paused and looked to him. Carl, in turn, pointed at the shake.
“I said I wanted this damn thing made only a little thick.”
The pony sighed. “Sir, the machines only make the one thickness…”
“Bullsh’t! A shake I got in here two weeks ago wasn’t near this thick! And I told you to leave the damn half-rotted, tasteless cherry off of it! And I still don’t have that plate of cookies I ordered!”
The waiter grimaced. “…Sir, I told you they’re in the oven-”
The green stallion rolled his eyes. “How many times a week do I come in at this exact time? How many…” He trailed off, and sighed. “…Whatever. Just…just get me a different shake, please.”
The pony still frowned at him, giving a rather dark look, before using her horn to lift the shake onto her tray and walked out. He looked back to the table and shook his head.
“Even the staff at the Marble Creamery was better…”
The door made a jingle, but Carl didn’t look up to it right away. Only after he sat there for a moment, hearing the stiff sounds of a pony slowly clicking on the floor, did he actually put down his ice pack and look up to the side. He actually gave pause, but only a moment before looking forward again…just as a very haggard and tired-looking Sam moved up to the chair and nearly collapsed into it, practically falling off again.
Carl looked up to him at that for a moment, then back down again. Sam never even looked up. Both were silent.
“…And here I thought you’d have to lead the conversation for once.” Carl said, breaking the silence at last. He looked to him. “Bad day?”
Sam paused. “…You might say that.”
Carl snorted as he looked down. “It couldn’t possibly have been as bad as my day.”
“…I wouldn’t make a bet on that, Carl.”
“Oh yeah? I got fired.”
Sam looked up a bit at that. Carl sighed and shook his head.
“Someone tried to say ‘Speedy’s’ shakes were better than those at ‘Marble Creamery’, and I lost it because they tore down the Marble Creamery this morning…and…well, to make a long story short, I got kind of violent.”
Sam looked to him a bit more. “…How violent?”
Carl grimaced a bit and turned his head. “Well…let’s just say I might have been able to argue for a suspension if I hadn’t seized one of the canisters of Dragon Breath and tried to burn off my opponent’s face.”
Sam snapped fully to him. “Dude…are you nuts?!”
“I got really worked up about it, Sam! I had been looking forward to that thing all morning ever since I got away from Farrah! That was going to be the one shining spot of my morning, and then they purposely started ragging on it knowing it would piss me off! I was set up!”
The blue stallion merely groaned and facehooved. “Carl, if I’ve told you once I’ve told you a thousand times. Your obsession with fixating on dumb crap is going to get you in trouble some day. And now look what it did! You got fired over a damn milkshake!”
“That cookie shake was worth defending! I was standing up for my principles!”
“Carl!”
“Alright, alright!” He suddenly shouted back, sighing and slumping into the chair. “So maybe I should have just let it go…but that’s not going to do me any good now. Now Farrah’s never going to let me have a moment’s peace.”
Sam blinked. “…She still doesn’t have a job? Hasn’t she been pretty much freeloading off of you for months?”
Carl groaned. “If I tell her to hurry up and get work, it’ll end up even worse for me. She’ll nag more than ever and claim she can’t supervise her damn kids at all. And if I try to kick her out, mom will treat me like I’m King Sombra…” He looked over to Sam. “Hopefully you’re feeling better when you’re thinking at least your problem isn’t as bad as mine.”
Sam frowned. “Guess again. You know that promotion I was hoping for? They gave it to Pencil Pusher. And his first order of business was to fire me and replace me with some junior employee for less money so he could skim the rest of into his own paycheck. Dude…it’s like he’s literally continuously ripping me off by stealing my future paychecks as well as my current one.”
Carl went a bit wide-eyed. “You’re kidding, right? You’re the best operator for that company!”
Sam snorted. “Duly noted. You can tell my new/former boss that. He screwed me over on some technicality to keep from paying me for today or getting me any benefits too, claiming I violated some obscure rule no one ever obeys and then canning me.”
“Damn…” Carl muttered. “…Well, alright, I admit it. Barring the guy I hit in the head with one of the conch shell transmitters multiple times pressing battery charges, you did have a worse day than me.”
Sam grimaced. “I wasn’t finished. You know how I was planning on paying for the wedding, right? Well, I’m not going to pay for a wedding on an unemployment check. So I go to Dawn to give her the bad news and I figure I’m getting there before her dad so we can work something out, but then not only do I find her dad is already there, but he has absolutely no love for me whatsoever and he makes a half dozen hints about how he’d love nothing better than to kick my ass. The dude showed me a pony’s head, man, like he was going keep my skull for a trophy if I tried to back down out of paying for this wedding!”
Now Carl went to serious shock. “Holy sh’t! Is this guy insane or something?! He can’t just do that no matter how much he dislikes you! I mean, for crying out loud, he’d be wanted for murder! He had to just be bullsh’tting you, man.”
Sam groaned. “Carl…he was part of the Canterlot Royal Guard. They kind of have that Rainbow Wall of Silence going. I really wouldn’t put it past him. But let’s say for the sake of argument that he’s just trying to scare me. He’ll still beat the living crap out of me and forbid me from marrying Dawn if I don’t come through. Especially after Dawn’s mom put down a non-refundable payment on a Meadowterranean cruise for the date Dawn wanted for the wedding!”
Carl looked a bit surprised at that second part, but then bowed his head and propped it up on a hoof himself. “And to think, I’m usually the guy who has crap end up happening to him… Alright Sam…you’re just going to have to bite the arrowhead and stand up to this son of a bitch. It’s honestly not your fault.”
Sam just shook his head in response. “No dude…I can’t do that. This guy looks like he’s just itching for a reason to dance on my face with tap horseshoes.”
“Come on, Sam! You’ve got to be a man! Isn’t Dawn worth it to you?”
“That’s just it!” The blue stallion responded. “This isn’t just about Stonewall Charger not throwing me into a bin at a glue factory! Dawn does everything for me! She took time out of her life this morning alone just to make my favorite lunch for no reason other than she felt like doing something nice! This is the biggest commitment I’ve ever made to her before! And as much as Stonewall Charger may be a tremendous jackass…”
“Hey!” A donkey suddenly shouted from the nearby table.
Carl looked up to him with a frown. “It’s just an expression! And we aren’t even talking to you!”
Sam went on. “…He made a good point. For years he’s been trying to get Dawn to pick someone else richer, smarter, and stronger than me. He’s constantly reminding her of how inferior I am to dozens of other stallions. This is the one thing I can say I’ve got them all beat at. If I can’t come through for this, I’m afraid Dawn is going to start wondering why she ever started wasting time on me in the first place.”
Carl paused momentarily, taking all of this in, and then sighed and leaned back. “…Alright, so this means a lot to you, obviously. Exactly how many bits do you have to come up with for this thing? Got any ideas?”
“After we planned everything out, around 50,000 bits.”
Carl shot up out of his seat so fast that his head knocked into the incoming waiter behind him with a fresh shake and the cookie order. Naturally, the cookies went flying and the waiter got a face full of shake, not to mention the collision caused a lot of people to turn their heads. Immediately, Sam looked up in shock to the waiter, while Carl, head in pain from hitting the tray, let out some curses and went to one side.
“Oh…oh, ma’am…” Sam began to apologize. “I’m so sorry… I-”
However, the unicorn fumed, taking her apron to wipe off her face, then turned and stormed away. As for Carl, he finished grasping his head and returned to his chair.
“Sh’t, that hurt! And I just ruined the shake and the cookies!” He grimaced, then recovered enough to look to Sam. “…They made sure not to bring a maraschino cherry this time, right? I hate those things.”
“Dude, you should have apologized. Now I don’t want to know what they’re going to bake into those damn cookies…”
Carl ignored this. “50,000 bits, man?! Doesn’t the average wedding, like, cost half that?”
“The 'average wedding' takes into account those ponies who go to Las Pegasus and those 24 hour chapels. Besides, we wanted this to be special.”
“‘Special’ is when your first grade teacher gives you a gold star on a drawing of Princess Celestia that has five hooves, Sam! 50,000 bits, on the other hand, is an assload of money! What the Hell was she thinking you were getting promoted to? CEO?”
“I was going to use my new salary figure for a loan!”
Carl let his head fall and thunk on the table. “I am never getting married. If I wanted to make my mom feel ‘special’ when I was a foal, I’d make her breakfast in bed or spend 2 bits on a card. There’s a line between ‘special’ and f***ing ‘Princess Cadance’s Nuptuals’, Sam.” He looked up. “She doesn’t want stupid crap like little mice in band uniforms and a gown made out of moonbeams or something, does she?”
“No! Carl…a wedding costs a lot of money! Just renting a decent chapel for a couple hours costs 2,000 bits.”
The green stallion grumbled. “I wonder how much of that goes into the pockets of the princesses…”
“Dude, are you going to complain that I shouldn’t pay that much or are you going to help me come up with some way to make that kind of cash?”
“Well don’t ask me for it, that’s all I can say!” Carl retorted. “We’re both broke now! We couldn’t even afford a trip to a 24 hour chapel and a cake from ‘Rich’s Barnyard Bargains’.” He went to his side, grabbed something in his teeth, and then threw a newspaper up on the table. “I’ve been looking over this damn classified section for an hour. There’s not one job anywhere in Ponyville that comes close to paying what I was making, and I know you were making a lot more than me. The only chance you have at getting that loan is throwing up some collateral.”
Sam snorted. “What collateral?”
“Don’t look at me, dude. You know I’m there for you, but that wagon is pretty much the only thing I own that has any value, and not much of it. You’d be lucky if it ended up being worth 1,500 bits at this point. Come on man, you’ve got to have something that’s worth some cash.”
Sam slumped and shook his head. “The most valuable thing I ever bought was that diamond engagement collar…which, I might add, I’m still trying to pay off as well. I’ve got nothing other than that besides some stupid condo in Manehattan.”
Carl nearly did a double take on hearing that. “…Dude, you actually own a condo in Manehattan?"
“Yeah.” Sam responded off handedly. “My great uncle made a ton of money selling leather for binding books.”
The green stallion raised an eyebrow. “…How exactly did he get the leather?”
Sam gave him a dark look. “Dude…do not vaporlock on me at a time like this. I need you to focus on my problem.”
Carl sighed. “Fine, but I’m going to want the whole story later.”
“Anyway…point being, all of his money went to most of the rest of the family but he left me that in the will when he died.”
“Manehattan is some of the best real estate in the country, Sam. That condo has to be worth-”
Sam cut him off with a head shake. “It’s in the urban decay part of town. The roaches are so big in that building they eat the rats. You feel like you need a haz-mat suit just to set foot in that place. Not to mention the fact that gang wars will keep you up all night… Assuming the place isn’t already condemned and the city council hasn’t gotten around to finalizing it, I couldn’t get 200 bits for it.”
Carl frowned and slumped for a moment, putting his hooves in front of him and looking back over the paper he put on the table. He stared for a few moments, then shrugged.
“Only one thing to do then. We’re going to have to hit the pavement and just turn this town inside out looking for a job. Any job, at this point. Because even if we don’t have to worry about that wedding, the end of the month is coming up…”
Sam grimaced. “Don’t remind me.”
At this point, the waiter returned. Her face was cleaned up, but her clothes were still dirty as she very grudgingly half-threw a plate of cookies on the table and a cherry-free milkshake in front of Carl. It was so rough it made him look up a bit in response, as she sneered and walked away. Sam himself looked to her for a moment, and then to the cookies…almost as if they were laced with ebola.
“Um…what do you say we both look around and if we find anything the other one is good at, we give them a buzz?”
“Good idea.” Carl answered as he drank a bit out of the straw of the milkshake. Immediately, he made a face and spat it out. “Damnit!” He yelled. “They spit in it!”
Sam quirked an eyebrow. “You were able to tell that from the first sip?”
“Well yeah! When that guy is making it!”
He pointed to the kitchen counter. Sam looked up…and saw a camel manning the shake dispenser. He grimaced in response.
“Uh…how about we don’t meet here tomorrow?”





Unfortunately, the next day, Sam’s spirits had done little to improve.
Although the venue had changed to Sugarcube Corner, which was brighter with better service, Sam couldn’t really enjoy the atmosphere. After all, the day hadn’t yielded much in the way of profit. Lying before him on the table was the newspaper, with one ad after another crossed out in red. Nearly the whole paper was marked. Not one job opening he could take.
Naturally, he hadn’t said a word of this to Dawn, especially since Stonewall was still in town for a couple days. He had put on a happy face and been lying about the whole thing. However, he was getting nervous. He had a little over a week before the next payment on the engagement collar was due. And if he didn’t have any income coming in, it meant he’d have to choose between his rent and taking it back… That was enough to break any attempt at a cool exterior that he could come up with. On that note, he was avoiding Dawn as much as possible. Even phone calls were getting harder to keep up appearances with. He was noticeably getting more stressed as time went on.
As he sat there, thinking about where he went from now, a mare with pink hair and a yellow apron came up to him, smiling as she looked to him.
“What can I get for you, hon?”
Sam stared forward a moment, only slowly being distracted from his thoughts, and then looking up to her. “…Huh? Oh! Uh…just a strawberry soda, please.” He said before looking away and thinking again.
“Would you care for a lime spritzer with that?” The mare asked with a smile. “Many of our customers enjoy that.”
Sam looked to her again and shook his head. “No thank you.” He began to look away again.
“How about a float?” She asked. “Strawberry soda goes excellent with vanilla in an ice cream float.”
Sam exhaled a bit, and looked again to her. “No thank you.”
“Would you like a slice of pie to go with that?” She kept pressing, still smiling. “We have a wonderful selection of pies.”
Sam began to grimace a bit. “…I’m not that hungry.”
“Are you sure? We have ones freshly baked with apples right from our own Sweet Apple Acres…”
“…I said I’m not hungry, ma’am.” Sam answered.
“How about some chocolate cake? Come on!” She ribbed him a bit. “There’s always room for a slice of chocolate cake!”
“…Ma’am, I’m just waiting on someone to meet with. I just want the soda.”
“I can’t tempt you with any cookies? The butter ones are fresh out of the ov-”
Finally, Sam groaned and dropped his hooves down on the table so hard that it sent an audible ripple through the entire store. “Lady! Listen to me and hear what I’m saying! I don’t want anything to eat! I don’t want a float! I don’t want a lime spritzer! I don’t want whatever other damn ‘options’ you’re trying to sell me! I’m not trying to buy a house, for Celestia’s sake! I just want a damn strawberry soda!”
The mare had recoiled quite a bit at this by now, looking almost frightful at Sam. He continued to stare at her for a moment, slowly calming down as well. But before he could fully get his bearings back, the mare turned and ran back to the counter. Sam groaned…looking away again. He didn’t really expect to get his strawberry soda now either.
He didn’t stare to one side long before an equally-sore and unhappy-looking Carl came up to him, a shake balanced on his head, which he set down on the table before sitting as well. “These shakes are ‘alright’, at least… It just almost feels like they’re slapping me in the face. After having a ‘Marble Creamery’ shake, nothing else really compares…”
Sam looked to him. “Carl, I don’t mean to sound ‘rude’…but please tell me you did more today than just tried to find a new place to get milkshakes.”
Carl gave him a look. “Hey…times are tough. I need something to keep my spirits up. Anyway…no luck. Every last place I went to that had a quality control department was completely filled up. So I tried getting creative. I went to Sweet Apple Acres and tried to market myself as a ‘bean counter’. Well, they grow apples, not beans, so that didn’t work out… Then I found out the local Rainbow Factory was needing someone to operating the buffering on the dye mixes…but they said I couldn’t do it because…you know…” He patted his wingless back. “I’d tried telling that guy that this was workplace discrimination, but apparently the legal codes make exceptions for pegasi industries. I even went to the town hall to try and fill in a job for an editor. But they’re apparently big sticklers for having no pending legal charges if you’re going to work in a government position.”
He paused a moment.
“…Actually, I did see this one job that would have been an extra 4,000 bits per year and I did pretty good on the interview. It was for site inspection of construction, and that’s a pretty big industry since one of the princesses lives in Ponyville now and lots of ponies are moving here.”
Sam looked up a bit. “That sounds pretty good. Do you think you might get the job?”
Carl grimaced and sighed as he shook his head. “Sorry, dude. They broke things off, told me to get lost, and I wouldn’t be hearing a call from them.”
The blue stallion looked up. “Huh? What ruined it?”
Carl paused for a moment in response, grimacing a bit. Sam stared at him, his eyes slowly narrowing.
“Carl…please tell me whatever ruined this for you didn’t involve one of those stupid shakes.”
“...It was on his desk the whole time, Sam. I tried not to look at it…but he just kept taking drinks from it…and when he offered to buy me one and said: ‘it’ll be the best shake you ever tasted’…”
Sam groaned. “Carl…those shakes have now cost you two jobs. Please don’t try and go for a ‘hat trick’…”
“I can’t help it, dude! That chain should have never closed!” He paused after saying this, and then sighed and slumped in his chair. “Anyway, did you have better luck?”
“Hardly. Everywhere I went wasn’t interested. All I got for a day of walking was a bunch of insults. One employer looked at my cutie mark and said I should be in the ‘ugly beanbag chair’ business. Another said I should grow radioactive cashews. A third guy wondered if I was good at giving ponies hemorrhoids… They didn’t even bother looking at my resume!” He slumped in his own seat. “It’s no use, Carl. The only jobs that are left are crap like landscaping and selling bridles door-to-door that pay on commission. There’s just no openings for some guy good at listening to crap and a guy who finds mistakes in things.”
Carl exhaled and looked to the table again. After a moment, however, he blinked, and then looked back up to Sam, a bit more earnest. “Wait a second…why not get a job that uses both our talents?”
Sam looked up to him. “Huh?”
“Think about it, dude. Together nobody wants us for anything. But together…we could do a whole new set of jobs! If we put our talents together, we can accomplish anything! We’d be unstoppable!”
Sam gave him a deadpan look.
“…Not only is that one of the weaker and cornier concepts I’ve ever heard from you, Carl, what exactly gives you that idea?”
“Come on, man! Don’t you remember when we were colts? Remember how we kicked ass at school candy sales?”
Sam hesitated on hearing that part. He looked to the ceiling and thought back momentarily…





A green and blue colt pulling a wagon loaded with candy bars stood at the door of a farmhouse, as a grizzled-old green mare proceeded to buy two whole boxes of rice-chocolate bars from them. She gave them the bits, which they readily accepted before looking to each other and grinning, the green one having braces.
“Yes! We’ll be the best candy salesponies at our school and get to pick the grand prize for sure!”
“I could use a new wagon!”
“…Wagon? Dude, I want the Easy-Bake Oven so we can make our own cookies.”
The two turned to leave, only to see that a party of a sort was taking place in the surrounding farm, which looked a lot like Sweet Apple Acres. One of the ponies was currently looking at a young orange pony whose mouth was mottled with the refuse of apple fritters and seated under the table.
The blue one smiled. “Aw…she kind of looks like your kid sister, Carl.”
Carl merely quirked an eyebrow. “…Sam, how did she manage to get the apple fritters off the table and under it when she’s not even big enough to climb on a bench?”
Sam rolled his eyes and kept pulling the wagon. “Not now, Carl…you got us in detention last week doing that…”





Sam blinked as he came out of the flashback. “…I guess you got a point.” He admitted. “But even so, it’s not like we can make a living selling candy bars. And no one is hiring more than one person. Let’s face it…Ponyville is ‘dry’ when it comes to the job market.”
Carl frowned and put his own head down on the table hopelessly, looking at the marked-up classified page. “Yeah…and neither of us know a thing about starting our own business, either…”
For a moment, the two merely stared out hopelessly, not saying anything else, just musing over their bad situation.
However, something he spotted on the paper suddenly made him look up.
“…That’s it!”
Sam snapped his head up in response. As for Carl, he quickly leaned the rest of the way up and moved the paper around so the blue stallion could see it. 
“Look right here! There’s an employment business operating out of Manehattan for overnight services! Says ‘thousands of openings starting at 40 bits an hour’!”
Sam looked up more at that, looking to the ad. “40 bits? That’s pretty damn high for something that’s not a college degree job, don’t you think?”
“It’s overnight jobs, Sam. In an urban area. They’re offering that because no one will take the jobs otherwise. They’re dangerous plus they’re all night long. Probably pretty disgusting stuff like cleaning up crime scenes and sewers too.”
The blue stallion’s gaze narrowed. “…And…we want these jobs why again?”
Carl gave him a glare. “Because you have a homicidal soon-to-be father-in-law who will kill you if you don’t scare up 50 grand.”
Sam grimaced and sighed. “…Alright, you got a point. But dude, the reason they have to pay that much is because no one can afford to live in Manehattan who doesn’t make twice the Equestrian average.”
Carl grinned. “That’s the beauty part, Sam. You already own your own home there, right?”
Sam went a bit wide-eyed. “Are you out of your mind, Sam? That place is practically held up with chewing gum and toothpicks and it’s got mold growing on the mold!”
The green stallion shrugged. “So we’ll take some cleaning supplies along, bleach the Hell out of it, spray some air fresheners, and unroll a couple sleeping bags. We only need to sleep in there, Sam, not host a Celestia-damn dinner party.”
“You want to actually move to Manehattan? Both of us? Are you out of your mind?!” Sam retorted. “Dawn will figure out what we’re up to in no time! I can’t just move to a different city to find work!”
Carl held up his hooves. “Dude, it’ll be fine. Here’s the plan…you tell Dawn that you need to go on a business trip for a month…”
“‘Business trip’? Carl…I’m an operator!”
“Just say it’s a convention on better models of seashells or something, Sam!”
“What’ll you tell your sister?”
“The same thing, of course.”
“Carl…you’re a quality control officer!”
“Who cares? Farrah doesn’t give a damn about what I do so long as I pay the rent. We move to Manehattan…sign up for the most well-paying job we can get, no matter how rotten or miserable it is, so long as it pays a ridiculous amount…pay our rents and bills back home with what we skim off of it and stash the rest…and at the end of the month, our income brackets get locked in before it’s registered that we changed addresses. You use that higher income level to get the loan and we put down what we’ve got as a down payment on it…by that time hopefully the job market in Ponyville has improved…and we quit our jobs, come back home, and you pay for the wedding.”
“What if the job market doesn’t improve, Carl?”
“Who cares? You paid for the wedding, didn’t you? G.I. Wanna-Kill-You goes home and then you and Dawn can discuss everything and BS the rest to him…after your honeymoon, of course.”
Sam sighed. “Carl…there’s two problems with your plan…both of them being things that I generally try to avoid like equine spongiform encephalopathy: breaking the law and lying to Dawn.”
Carl frowned. “And there’s one problem with your reasoning, Sam…you already lied to Dawn and Stonewall once to save your ass.”
The blue stallion couldn’t come up with a retort to that. He bowed his head and sighed.
“It’s only a little illegal, Sam. It’s basically cheating on taxes. And that’s something everypony would do if they could! The Canterlot Adjustors are after those big companies, not after some little guy who’s trying to fund a wedding! And falsifying an address is like the ‘jaywalking’ of the tax world! You can always lie and say you had a brain fart and filled in the wrong address on the form!”
Sam was still reluctant. Carl sighed and leaned in forward.
“Dude…do you really have any better ideas?”
The stallion hesitated a bit longer, thinking things over. A part of him didn't want to take the risk, didn't want to lie, and definitely didn't want to go on this whole risky, cockamamy plan. However...considering all the desperation he had been in...how much abuse he had taken over the past couple days, first by Pencil Pusher and then by Stonewall...not to mention how much he had been mocked when he tried to do things 'legitimately'...it was enough to push him "over the edge". Finally, he reached a decision. Putting a hoof down on the table, he looked up to Carl.
“Alright…you’re right. And even if it is a bit illegal…who cares?”
“Exactly!” Carl responded.
“It’s a stupid law to begin with! I mean…I paid my taxes for years honestly and our national defense is six mares with gold collars!”
“Damn straight!”
“And I got royally screwed by Pencil Pusher yesterday and he didn’t have to pay a single bit for that! At least I’m doing this for a noble cause!”
“Hell yeah!”
Sam paused for a moment, nodding to himself, and then finally looked more intently to Carl. “…Let’s do it. Tonight, we give the stories to Dawn and Farrah…and tomorrow morning we hit Manehattan hard.”
“Now you’re talking! That’s the Sam I know!” 
Both stallions seized their respective drinks, chugged them both down in seconds, and slammed the glasses on the ground, shattering them, both getting psyched up now.
“Let’s blow this café and go kick some ass!”
“F*** yeah!”
They both turned to leave, when a voice yelled out that made them both freeze.
“Hey! You two are going to pay for those drinks and those glasses before you walk out of here!”
Both lost a bit of thunder at that, looking to each other and grimacing. With more embarrassed mutters, they went for their respective wallets, put a few bits on the table, replaced them, and then resumed their dangerous looks before moving out.


To be continued...