22 December, Y.C. 969
Canterlot
“I said, hi mom.”
“Mmm. What?”
“I swear, mom,” said the tan pony, tossing a bag on one of the spare chairs in the office. “Sometimes it’s like you’re not even here.”
“Sorry, honey,” said Aspia, glancing up momentarily from the papers on her desk. “How was school?”
“Great,” said the pony, hopping onto another chair with an eye-roll worthy of the stage. “Just great. It’s been going a lot better since I graduated last year, you know.”
“Right.” Aspia paused for a moment. “Margaret, I’m sorry. It’s been —”
“A busy day, I know,” she said, absently twirling a lock of pink mane. “I bet.” She frowned. “Doesn’t the Secrepony of Defense have, you know, a staff for this stuff? It’s almost midnight.”
“Oh, we’re all working,” said Aspia, waving absently towards the door to the big hall that housed her staff. “None of us can get out of that.” She shuffled a few more papers around, compared a pair, and signed off on a third. “So what’d you do today?”
“Not much,” said Margaret, standing back up and starting to wander around the office. “All the local administrations are playing it safe with this whole Blackacre thing. Nopony wants to ruffle feathers here in Canterlot, so they’re all playing nice with each other.”
“That’s nice,” she murmured.
“No requests for mediation,” she started, ticking items off on a hoof. “No water rights disputes between White Tail Woods and Las Pegasus, the Vanhoover bay is frozen up so they’re shut down for the winter, a pair of yeti dropped by Neighagra Falls for some tea, Manehattan’s building a bridge to Saddle Arabia, you’re not listening to me are you.”
“Sounds like they’re keeping you busy,” said Aspia, her eyes never once leaving the desk. “All in a day’s work, right?”
Margaret gave her a good long glare, holding it for a few seconds before realizing she wasn’t about to notice it. Holding back a sharp response, she paced over to the desk and peered over the elder pony’s shoulder.
“What’s up?” she asked. “Ooh, draft ponies. You hauling something?”
Immediately Aspia jerked up towards her — and then, a half-second later, smiled.
“Honey, this is all classified.” She shooed Margaret away with a rolled up memo. “You know that.”
“I know,” she moped, poking at something on the wall. She had heard the spiel often enough. National security and all that. “What about just this once?”
“Nope,” she said, and for once the smile on her face was genuine. “Try again once you get your clearances.”
“Yeah, like that’s going to happen.” Margaret rolled her eyes. “You can’t even tell me where my father is. Didn’t think a daughter needed clearance for that.”
Aspia winced despite herself. That was a low blow and they both knew it. Still, there wasn’t much she could do about it. She and Henry hadn’t ended on the best of terms, and now he was off on the other side of the globe. She didn’t even know where… she didn’t want to.
Amazing how, even fifteen years later, just thinking about him gave her pause. It wasn’t particularly painful, at least not anymore, but he was still something… special. An old wound might scab and scar over, the muscles underneath might heal, but they would always be just a little bit twisted, gnarled. It didn’t necessarily hurt, but it was always there.
She gave no outward indication of her thoughts, but then again she didn’t need to. Margaret knew her well enough to know what she was thinking. She also knew well enough to be ashamed of the cheap shot, which saved both the time and effort of a proper chastising.
“Keep on doing good work and you might end up with clearance too,” she said instead, shuffling the sensitive documents off the top of the pile. “How’s your studying for the A-levels going?”
Margaret blew an exasperated whinny. At the moment, she was a bureaucratic functionary in the Home Office, dealing with routine correspondence between Canterlot and the local and regional governments.
She actually held a position several grades above where a filly of her years might normally be placed, but only part of it was due to her mother’s name and influence; Margaret herself had a surprising aptitude for dealing with local needs. Many Canterlot ponies had bureaucratic cutie marks, but her scroll-and-blue-ribbon had an elegance about it. With a bit of luck, her aptitude would translate to high marks on the A-levels; those would place her on an upper-level training track. In a few years, she could be a mayor, maybe a lieutenant governor. After that, with her youth and talent… well, she just might end up back in Canterlot.
“Fine, I guess,” she said, kicking idly at a crumpled paper. “It’s just a bunch of big problems. No interacting with individual ponies.”
“You can’t solve everypony’s problems by yourself,” said Aspia gently. “Someone like you? You can do a lot more good by fixing a few really big problems. Or even not so big problems. That’s the thing about working in Canterlot. One flap of the wing here, and it’s clear skies out in Baltimare.”
“Maybe,” said Margaret noncommittally. It was an invitation to debate, but Aspia knew her daughter well enough. Once that pink mane shrugged just so, there was no budging her. She was stubborn, just like her mother. Just like her father….
“Getting a lot of complaints about food stocks,” ventured Margaret in an uncharacteristic display of bureaucratic assertiveness. “Lots of little towns rely on bigger depots, and they’re not looking too well-stocked.” She paused for a moment. “They’re counting on the railroads to get through to Appleloosa.”
“I bet,” said Aspia. “I’m not really the pony to ask, though. I can’t disclose anything.”
A moment of silence.
“If you had to guess. In a strictly civilian and non-professional way.”
She smiled. Yes, this was her daughter.
“In my capacity as a civilian, and nothing more… I might be able to make some guesses. Guesses, mind.”
“Wouldn’t dream they would be anything else.”
“The rail line over Ghastly Gorge doesn’t seem to be the safest at the moment,” she mused. “If I were trying to get goods out of Appleloosa, I’d get them to Dodge, and across to the Baltimare railroad over Rambling Rock Ridge.”
“There’s no line over the Ridge,” pointed out Margaret. “I wonder if it would be more efficient to build one or bring everything over by hoof.”
“I do wonder about that,” she agreed. “If I were a pony who had to make that call, I’d have analysts on that right now.” She waved a hoof airily. “And if I were to continue wondering, I would wonder whether it would be more efficient to deploy the army to support and guard engineers, or simply move the goods themselves.”
She shrugged. “Either way, goods will get through.”
“That’s a lot more work.”
“Of course it is. But somepony has to do it.”
“They’ll be relieved to hear that,” said Margaret with a nod. “Lots of the little towns are worried Canterlot’s forgotten about them, or wants to cut them loose.”
“Relieved to hear what?” she asked sharply.
“My best guesses,” she said with a cheery smile. “They’re just guesses, but maybe if they hear somepony else talk it through with them… that might be something.”
“Just might.” Aspia smiled. “You sure you don’t like dealing with big problems?”
“Pretty sure,” she said, shaking her head. “Besides, this is a lot of individual mayors from different towns that all happen to have the same problem. I’ll need to talk to them all individually, and that’s the fun part.”
“Fun.” She shrugged. “Whatever makes you happy.”
“That’s what you always say, mom,” her daughter admonished her. “But — I’m just guessin’ here, but you don’t look too happy with your job right about now.”
Aspia blinked. The dispatches and reports on the desk in front of her flowed well beyond the capacity of the dozen or so pigeonholes to hold them; they all blended into a single sea of paper. It didn’t look particularly fun… and the fact that it was probably around midnight didn’t help either.
“Somepony’s got to do it,” she shrugged. “The work might not always be fun, but I need to do it.” She gestured helplessly at the freshest-looking stack of papers. “Now more than ever.”
“But…” she started, poking idly at the papers, careful to not upset their order. “Do you need to do it now?”
“Unfortunately, yes,” came a voice from the door. Margaret whirled, blinked twice, and fell to her knees.
“Princess,” said Aspia, jumping to her feet, “you’re alive!”
“Of course,” said the alicorn with the hint of a shrug. “The sun rose today, didn’t it?”
“Not to mention the official reports that keep crossing my desk about the things you’ve been doing,” said the pony with a brush at a stack of documents. “I’m glad to verify them for myself, though.”
“I understand completely,” said Princess Celestia. “Reports are one thing, but sometimes it’s nice to see things for yourself.” She turned towards the filly, still on the floor, who was probably praying that neither of them would remember her.
“Margaret,” she started in that pleasant tone she affected, “I’ve heard good things about your progress. I look forward to seeing more of your work in the coming weeks; we’ve got a lot of problems, and I think you’re just the pony to solve them.”
She blinked. Celestia smiled.
“Walk away tall, little one,” she said. “You do your mother proud.”
“Th— thank you,” she struggled.
A pause. Aspia raised a single eyebrow.
“Right,” said Margaret with an obsequious bow. “Thank you. Good night, Princess. Mother.”
In a flash she was out the door, the sound of hooves down the hall rapidly receding.
“You’ve kept tabs on her progress?” asked Aspia.
“With her pedigree?” The Princess laughed, a light sound. “Of course I receive reports. I haven’t read them in the past few weeks, though. There have been more… pressing concerns.”
At that moment, one of the side doors to Aspia’s office opened, followed closely by a slightly pudgy pony with a sheaf of photos.
“These just came in from the Herald,” he said without preface, staring closely at one. “Lots of good shots, but a fantastic one of some unicorn. If we want to start the Mulitzer betting pool early, my bits’re on….”
He trailed off, realizing the lighting in the room was tinged with the faintest touch of a few particularly recognizable pastel shades.
“Princess!” he exclaimed, bowing deeply. “I’m so sorry; I —”
“No need,” she said, waving off the apologies. “Even at midnight, you’re hard at work. Equestria relies on ponies like you; you and your staff are to be commended.”
“Thank you, Princess,” he said with a deep nod. “I’ll… I’ll leave these here.”
He was out the door by the time the photos hit the desk. Celestia glanced at the door, and it swung closed.
“May I assume that we will have some amount of privacy?” she asked idly.
“My staff picks up on things quickly enough,” said Aspia, picking up the photos. “Between coordinating logistics for the army and dealing with local fallout, they have plenty of work to keep them busy.”
“Good,” said Celestria, all trace of good humor vanishing from her face. “We have work to do.”