The Equestria Games are coming up. I keep getting letters from my friends asking me to come along with them. I think I'll actually be able to make it, since it's part of my Princessly duties too. It's nice to see that title getting me something I actually want for once. I'll need to remember to ask Ician later to save my friends a few seats beside mine.
More importantly, I spoke to Fancy yesterday.
He wasn't allowed to leave his room, of course. He was technically under house arrest. But I was allowed to visit him... or rather they couldn't stop me from visiting him. The commander of the three guards posted outside his room, though, insisted that I be accompanied by an armed escort. I gave him a flat 'no' seven times before he finally stopped insisting, and even then he stood stubbornly in front of the door before I gently nudged him aside and walked in anyway.
The room was noticeably more sparse than mine was. I was staying in Princess Celestia's room, true, so it was no surprise that the guest rooms didn't match up to the level of splendor, but I guess it was just a little jarring after staying in her room for as long as I had. Plus this place had only one bookshelf. One. And it had just six books on it.
Fancy was sitting on the bed, absorbed in the seventh and probably only other book in that room. He looked up as I walked in, and as the commander behind me tried to push his way into the room and got a closed door as his reward.
"Hello, Twilight," he said warmly.
I didn't want to beat around the bush. I was tired enough of all of that nonsense. I just asked him, very bluntly, "Fancy, can I trust you?"
He blinked, apparently speechless, as Ician had said he would be. "Princess, what brought this on?"
"I had a talk with Ician."
"Ician, Ician..." he mused. I occurred to me only then I hadn't actually introduced Fancy to Ician yet. "Ah, right, Tact Ician. PPS of the MHSS, right?"
"The, uh... the what now?" I asked, a little sheepish. If Fancy was giving me acronyms, it meant that I should probably know them.
"Oh, sorry about that," he said. "I forgot that you haven't been here quite long enough to pick up on all the Palace lingo. PPS stands for a Principal Private Secretary, and MHSS stands for the Ministry of Health and Social Security."
"Ah, I know what those are," I said, with perhaps just a little too much pride. I still hadn't learnt the difference between a Principal Private Secretary and a regular one, but I wasn't about to look any stupider than I already did. I'll ask Ician some other time.
"So... that's what Ician is, is it?"
"Yes," I answered firmly. "Wait, no, hold on. He's my Assistant Councillor, not a Principal Private Secretary."
"Ah, so that's what he is now," Fancy observed. "When I was in office, he used to be in Health and Social Security. I suppose he's climbed the ladder since then."
"Well, yes," I said, momentarily forgetting what I'd been asking. After a few moments of awkwardness, I remembered what I was saying and pressed on. "He said that I shouldn't trust you."
"Ah," Fancy replied. "What was his reasoning?"
"That I don't know what your motives are."
"You don't know my motives?" He chuckled jovially. "Twilight, I'm just here to help you. The Palace is a free-for-all, it won't be easy to survive without somepony who knows the ropes."
"That's it?" I asked. "You're just here to help me?"
"Well..." He 'hmm'ed. "I've always wanted to change a few things in government. Not that it's for me to say, of course; I'm just here for advice. Ultimately, it's up to you whether you want to accept or reject my ideas."
My instincts told me to trust him and accept it at face value, but my inner cynic was strong enough to push back. "So you'll only be advising me? That's all?"
"That's all," he stated. "I have no power here, Princess. This is your domain. The domain of the Princess. Lately it's been a playground for the Civil Service, and that's what I want to help you change... but only if you'll accept me and trust what I'm saying. It doesn't mean you have to agree with everything I say. It just means you have to be willing to listen to me, that's all."
So basically, he was telling me that the whole point was moot - I didn't need to trust him at all. That actually made me trust him more. He had no power, no authority, and he didn't even need to have my trust. What else could he be trying to do, other than help me?
"I trust you," I said. "Do you have any advice for me now?"
"None that I can think of at the moment. Not in particular," he said. "There's the Equestria Games, at least. I expect there will be, and have been, a lot of sponsorship offers. All those companies wanting to get their advertisements in the big stadium." He chuckled. "I'm guilty of that, too. Or at least Fancy Co. is. I'm fairly certain there's a lot of Palace activity going on behind the scenes to deal with the sponsorship applications, but you won't hear a word of it."
"What?" I asked, taken aback. Were they hiding more things from me? "Why not?"
"I'm sure they're afraid of a repeat of the whole nepotism scandal from when you took office." He gave me a wide smile. "I knew when I read it that it was just another Civil Service machination. Nopony who knew you would actually believe that."
"Heh heh, eh. Of course not. That'd be just... dumb." I tried to smile the most sincere smile I could. I'm not entirely sure if he bought it, but he didn't say anything about it.
"That just goes to show what rumours can do, even if unfounded," he said. "Information, both true and false, is the most powerful weapon in the Palace. You can't do battle without it."
"But I'm the Princess," I pointed out. "I have all the power."
"You have the most authority, but the least information," he explained. "Because of that, you're impotent. You can't do anything if you don't know anything."
He was right. I've had to deal with only three problems since I got here; the apple supplier problem, the Ahuizotl incident, and the ludicrous Palace pay. I guess I was lucky that I even heard about them to begin with. I get the impression I only heard about the Ahuizotl incident because of Ician's loyalty, and even that wasn't enough to get him to tell me about pay.
Speaking of the pay, I still hadn't resolved that one yet. I put the question forward to Fancy: What should I do about it?
"... Nothing yet, Princess, if at all," he answered slowly. "In all truthfulness, I doubt this is something we can fully eliminate. I don't even think we'd be able to put a dent in it. They're crafty... or at least the Civil Service is. When I used to work here, I tried to do what you want to now."
"How did that turn out?"
"I found three hundred and fifty-four obstacles on the statute books." He shrugged. "They've been working through the centuries, it's nothing we'll be able to undo in weeks. Ultimately, you win some and you lose some, Twilight. We've got other battles to fight. Maybe one day we can come back to this and actually solve it. For now..." he quietened down and mulled. "... For now, I think you should make sure you know what's happening with the sponsorship offers."
"Why?" I asked, puzzled. "I can't think of much that'd go wrong. It's just a few advertisements, right?"
He nodded slowly. "Normally, yes. But there are a few companies you ought to make sure don't get any advertisement space."
"What kind of companies would that be?"
"You'll know when you see them," he said. "There are a lot of them, mostly small, but some of these small 'companies' - if you could call them that at their inception - eventually evolved beyond that. Some fell into corruption, some were rotten from the start... nothing you want to associate with, and certainly nothing you'd want sending a government-sanctioned message out to the general public."
"'Government-sanctioned'?" I questioned.
"The Equestria Games is officially a government-organised and privately-funded event," he explained. "Since the government's in charge, whatever officially happens at those games reflects governmental attitude to certain issues. That extends to advertisements, which is why we have the Code of Advertising to keep a handle on what those private companies can do with their advertising space."
"I wouldn't need to worry about keeping an eye on it then, would I?" I reasoned.
"No... Not if you don't mind the Civil Service interpreting the Code of Advertising for you," he replied.
"... Oh." Looks like I'd have to be careful about this whole affair, then. "Thanks for the tip, Fancy."
"I live to serve," he said, with a mischievous glint in his eyes, "Princess Twilight."