After Braeburn found a two hundred bit charge for “private entertainment” tacked onto his bill, word quickly spread that if a patron requested “private entertainment” at the Lucky Horseshoe, they would get sent an (adorable) filly with board games. This had the intended effect of virtually ending the request for mares of the evening, but oddly it had the unintended effect of increasing the requests for private entertainment from a number of patrons who actually wanted to play board games with a filly. The two most common questions were along the lines of “Can she run our campaign for us?” and “Does she have a character, or do we have to make one for her, because our party really needs a cleric.” Royal Flush wasn’t entirely sure what these ponies were talking about but denied their request just to be on the safe side, directing anypony who pressed the issue to take it up with his new head of security, Snowflake. After that, the request for private entertainment were all but gone, and so Sweetie Belle was again sent back to the blackjack tables.
Sweetie Belle was happily hitting on 16 and below and staying on 17 and above when she saw two familiar stallions approach her table. Far from the swagger they had the first time she saw them, this time they approached her table both limping, their bodies covered in ugly bruises. Even as they approached from across the room, Sweetie could tell that they looked worse than that time Scootaloo tried to jump the Ghastly Gorge and ended up tumbling face first down the rocky cliffside.
“Hi Mugsy, Hi Nunzio. Wow, you guys look terrible, what happened?” she asked as they stopped in front of her station, still smiling because it was impossible for her to do anything without looking adorable.
“Oh uh we fell down some stairs,” Mugsy said, his eyes darting nervously back and forth.
“You should be more careful,” Sweetie gently admonished them. “Would you like to play some blackjack?”
As she studied the two stallions in front of her, she noticed that not only were they physically battered, they seemed to be genuinely scared. “Maybe later, see the thing is… we told da boss…what a good job you was doing…, and so he’s sending a ...friend of ours to come visit you,” Nunzio said, with more than a faint hint of worry to his voice.
His concern went unnoticed by the young dealer; she heard the words “good job” and “friend” and assumed that Nunzio was delivering words of praise. “That was nice of him,” she replied, pleased to be bringing in new customers.
“Yeah about that… see our friend's ...not very nice and um... we were kinda worried dat he might…hurt your feelings,” Mugsy said in the same worried tone his partner had used.
“I know a pony like that; her name is Diamond Tiara. She’s always being mean to me.”
Nunzio’s eyes narrowed until they were little more than two slits, his worries being temporarily forgotten. “Do you want us to talks to her?”
“We can be very persuasive,” Mugsy added with his patented crocodile smile.
“Oh wow, could you? I’m always telling her to be nicer, but maybe she’d listen to you. That would be great, thanks guys!” Sweetie Belle said happily. She never imagined her new casino friends could help with her bully problem, but Mugsy and Nunzio knew all about safety, so maybe they could convince Diamond that it wasn’t safe to be a bully or something. At this point she was willing to try anything.
Mugsy smiled a genuine smile; it looked unnatural on him for some reason. “Now that we’re doing you a favor, maybe you could do us a favor? See if you helped us out, den we could tell the boss that we’re all nice and friendly like.”
“And if we’re all friendly like, our other friend would be your friend too, and den everypony would be friends,” Nunzio finished.
“I’m not really sure what you mean, but I’m always willing to help a friend. Consider me at your service,” Sweetie Belle said with her best can-do attitude.
“Great, da boss has been looking for a way into da casino game,” Mugsy started.
“We don’t have a ‘casino game’, we have lots of games at our casino. He can come and play them. I’m even available for private entertainment!” Sweetie Belle said proudly.
Mugsy’s eye narrowed again, but a head shake from Nunzio returned them to their usual state. “What my partner means to say is dat the boss would like to have his own table here in da casino, and being a very busy guy, he would need a dealer to run said table, and so maybe you could help wit dat.”
“Oh I’m not sure I can do that. When I’m working I think I’m supposed to be where Royal Flush tells me to be,” Sweetie Belle said, disappointed that she was so far proving to be unhelpful to her new friends.
“What about when you’re not working?” Mugsy asked, desperately searching for a solution to the problem Sweetie Belle didn’t realize she had.
“Well I have school, and I still want to hang out with my friends. I don’t get to see them as much since I started here,” Sweetie Belle replied.
The three ponies stood around the blackjack table for a minute, though with vastly different goals in mind. Sweetie Belle still wasn’t sure what her new friends were looking for, so she couldn’t offer suggestions on how she might be able to help them, whereas the two stallions were trying to figure out a way to align Sweetie with their interests to avoid her being visited by an infamous mob hitpony. Suffice it to say, their thought processes were radically divergent.
“Okay, what if you still worked here at this table, but say once a week, you just changed the rules a little bit?”
“What do you mean?” Sweetie asked.
“Well ponies like winning right?” Mugsy said.
“Sure they do!” Sweetie said, pleased that she could agree with her new friends.
“So what if, once a week for about 10 minutes, you changed da rules so that the house hits on 17 and above, and stays on 16 and below? You wouldn’t tell anypony when you’re doing it, except us, and we won’t play, and then you’d have a lot more happy customers,” Mugsy finished his explanation, hoping he wouldn’t have to lie his way out of explaining that during those ten minutes a mob representative would of course make some very large bets.
“Kinda like a secret ‘make ponies happy game’?” Sweetie asked her eyes full of wonder at the possibilities. Royal Flush had said that her job was to make ponies happy, and this seemed like a fun way to do that.
“Exactly like that,” Mugsy said with another unnatural-looking grin.
Sweetie appeared to smile for a minute before a more somber expression settled on her face. “Sorry guys, I think I should stick to the rules Royal Flush told me. It’s like Mrs. Cheerilee always says, ‘the rules are there for a reason’,” she said with a note of pride in her voice.
Not sure who Cheerilee was (other than she apparently was partly responsible for foiling their plan), and out of ideas Mugsy and Nunzio sulked off with the knowledge that Sweetie Belle was soon due a very unpleasant visitor .