The tour continued. Dusty and Luna Dial had stopped by large grey iron double doors that resided on the lower levels of the castle.
“Alright, this is our next stop.” Dusty announced and shoved the heavy looking doors open and yelled a greeting. “Hello~!”
“Quiet!” A shrill yell responded from within.
The room was very spacious and was lined with tall archives and rows and rows of shelves filled to brim with books. In the middle of this all was desk that was shaped like a horse shoe. The desk was utterly backed with parchments, books and other papers.
And in the middle of that desk sat a pony. She was a unicorn with a pale grey coat and a strikingly white mane tied into a bun with loose strands sticking out. On her snout sat a pair of half moon spectacles. Around her levitated a number of books, scrolls, papers and quills, each doing something separate.
“This place over here is the archive of information, the royal Archives! Also a library.” Dusty said as she walked ahead. She gestured at the unicorn working multiple tasks at once behind the mountain of paperwork. “That over there is Gold Parchment, but we call her Goldie.”
“Do not refer to me by that name!” Gold Parchment demanded, never breaking her work pace.
Dusty chuckled softly. “Anyway, Goldie(“Rrgh!”) over there is the royal accountant. That means she keeps track of pretty much everything that happens around here. She also does time as a librarian.”
“That sounds… taxing.” Luna Dial noted.
“You’d think that, but Goldie is amazing at multi tasking.” Dusty said, gesturing at all the different parchments being filled with ink and letters. “She’s real brilliant. She’s got an IQ of 200!”
“236!” Gold Parchment yelled at the head maid, sounding both incredibly mad and incredibly tense. “And damn right I am brilliant!”
Dusty leaned in to whisper to her initiate.“The last accountant quit after it drove her mad. Started barking like a dog after too much stress.”
Luna Dial blinked. “That… sounds like a lot of stress.”
“My mane used to be red!” Gold screamed out of nowhere while her left eye twitched. She truly looked on the edge. Still, the activity around her did not seize, even for a second.
“Dang it Goldie! You worked through the night again didn’t you?” Dusty said in an accusatory tone.
“I work as long as I need to!” Gold Parchment yelled a reply, leading Luna Dial to believe she had no indoor voice. “How is your party of destroyers?”
Dusty looked and sounded almost offended. “Hey, there hasn’t been anything broken in two days!”
‘Is… that really a thing to boast about?’
Just then the muffled sounds of glass breaking carried it’s way into the archives. A bucket could briefly be seen falling past one of the windows. A distant cry of “Bucket, no!” could also be heard. Golden Parchment growled as her eye twitched violently.
Dusty shook her head. “Yeah, I think we are done here. Say hello to our future nut-job!” She meant the last part as a playful insult, prompting a quick rebuttal.
“I AM NOT INSANE!”
‘... That was… interesting. I suppose.’ Luna Dial thought.
Dusty had lead the two out of the Archives, leaving Gold Parchment to her apparently incredibly stressful job. Luna Dial mused the thought of Gold PArchment getting an assistant to make her job easier.
“Welp, now that we’ve seen Goldie let me tell you something.” Dusty said, breaking the silence. “I might not have just shown it the best, but be nice to Goldie. She works harder than any of us to make sure everything is going fine around here.”
She meant every word, Luna Dial could tell. “I will.” She replied.
“Great!” Dusty exclaimed. “Just to note here, we don’t see her very often outside of the Archive. Sometimes we just bring her food. Or remind her to eat it.”
‘Sounds like a certain librarian I know.’ Luna Dial mused while nodding. “What is our next destination, Ma’am?”
Dusty shot Luna Dial a grin. “If I told you it’d ruin the surprise. But let me ask you something. You got everything you’ve seen down to memory yet?”
Luna Dial was quiet for a second and thought it over. “... I think I’ve got the basics down.”
“That’s good enough. Trust me, with time you’ll learn the ins and outs of this castle.” Dusty said with confidence. “We got a few more places to visit, and if I timed all this right I’ll show you the rest of your hopefully future co-workers.”
Luna Dial smiles softly. “I hope we make it then.”
“That’s the spirit! No time to be lazing about!”
“… Aah~.” Dusty inhaled the fresh air. The two were now outside the castle, standing amidst grass, beds of flowers and trimmed trees.
Luna Dial looked around, also enjoying the outside air and breeze.
“I love it here.” Dusty said, closing her eyes to enjoy the surroundings. “This right here is the garden. Here grow many beautiful flowers and magnificent trees. You can just smell the scent of hundreds of flowers in the air, can’t you?”
“I must admit this is true. It as a most pleasant scent.” Luna Dial said, also closing her eyes. Amongst the scent of flowers in the air was also the ruffling leaves of the nearby trees.
“Yeah. Sometimes, when I have free time, I just come here and relax.” Dusty told with a content sigh. “The greenhouse here also provides a lot of the vegetables and fruit used by the cooks. You are allowed to take some, but only if you ask permission from the gardener.”
“Hey! Don’t run there!”
Both popped their eyes open and looked around, though Dusty did so not out of confusion or alertness. Amongst the trees and gardens ran an olive green earth pony mare with blond mane. She was wearing a straw hat on her head and apparently chasing something.
The mare ran into view, chasing a squirrel. “Get here, ya rascal!” Both the chase-ee and the chaser dived past the two maids in a flash.
*THONK*
The two mares cringed a bit as the mare’s skull met with a tree that was in the way. The tree shook and her straw hat fell off of her head. Miraculously the mare seemed okay, holding a struggling squirrel in her hooves.
“Gotcha!” She exclaimed just in time for an orange from the tree to plop on her head, causing her to loosen her grip. The furry vagabond got away and disappeared into the flower bed this time. “Owie...”
“Speak of the devil.” Dusty shook her head, amused. She walked over and helped the mare up. “Having rodent problems again, I see.”
The mare rubbed her head with a silent whimper. “He-he was eating my seeds...”
Behind her walked Luna Dial, holding her straw hat in her hoof. “You dropped this, miss.”
“Oh, thanks!” The mare said, happy to see her hat and promptly put it on.
“Luna Dial, this is Flora. She’s the royal gardener, the best you can find in Canterlot.” Dusty introduced the mare who was adjusting her hat. “She is the one keeping this garden all green and luscious.”
Flora looked at Luna Dial with a wide smile. “Hi!”
“Hello.” Was her modest reply.
Dusty looked around. “Sorry Flora, but I think your squirrel got away.”
Flora’s smile shifted into an angry glare in an instant. With fire in her eyes the gardener spoke in a thick accent. “Oooh, wait ‘till I git ma’ ‘ooves on tha’ squirrel! I’mma make ‘im pay fo’ eatin’ ma’ seeds an’ ruinin’ ma’ flowers an’-”
Dusty coughed into her hoof. “Flora, your accent is showing.”
Flora cupped her mouth briefly. “Oh… sorry. Just a bit mad right now.” She told her apologetically.
“Eh, it’s cool.” Dusty waved it off. “Anyway, Flora, this is Luna Dial, our new maid initiate. I’ve been showing her around today and we were just marvelling your work. You know, before the squirrel.”
“Greetings.” Luna Dial greeted with a short bow.
Flora smiled widely. “Hello. So, you like my garden?”
“It is very… peaceful.” Luna Dial noted.
Flora beamed of joy and pride. “Oh great! I work really hard to keep everything here as healthy as possible.” She said, adding a grumbled “Except them bloody squirrels.” under her breath.
Duster looked at the time. “Well, looks like it’s about time we move on. We got a few more places to go to.”
“... But you don’t have a watch.” Luna Dial noted calmly.
“Places. To. Go.” Dusty emphasized, ignoring the remark and literally dragging Luna Dial along.
Luna Dial decided to drop the subject and bid quick farewells to Flora the gardener before getting towed off to Celestia knows where next.
Some time later the tour was on it’s last stretches. The last place Dusty showed Luna Dial was the guard barracks. She had taken extra care to go by Dusty’s advice of “Ignoring the feeling of somepony ogling your flank, because that is most likely exactly what’s going on.”
It was not… too uncomfortable of an experience, at least she managed to hide it well if it was. Dusty though, she was not even phased. ‘She has years of experience, no doubt. It is to be expected.’
The barracks was simple, consisting of a number of building housing the royal guards. It was nothing special but preferred practicality above all else. While there Luna Dial did note how male centric the Royal Guard were. She saw maybe two female guards amongst the ranks, but she could not be sure.
Luna Dial now walked beside Dusty on the castle halls again. She reached over to her outfits breast pocket and pulled out a silver pocket watch. She flipped the cover open. ‘8:30 pm… time sure flies.’
“It’s that late already?” Dusty said, glancing over. “Nice watch by the way. Love it!”
Luna Dial smiled. “Thank you, Ma’am. It was a gift from my previous employer.”
“Sounds like a great pony to serve.” Dust remarked, looking at the time. She broke into a grin. “Well, seeing as it’s getting late we will move onto the next phase.”
She looked Luna Dial straight in the eye.
“Time to meet your co-workers.”