Hey fillies and colts, mares and stallions, whoever and whatever else! It’s now time for everypony’s least favorite part of the story! That’s right, it’s time for!
LIFE LESSONS WITH KEEN EYE!
The part of the story where I share important morals for your day to day lives!
Today’s lesson is about: Authority!
Spell it with me now. I-N-J-U-S-T-I-C-E. Authority!
Namely, the lesson is about what you should do when you’re dealing with an authority!
Let’s say, hypothetically, you’re facing down an authority who is irked with you. Say, I don’t know… a high ranking military elite in the Wonderbolts. Let’s also say that you’re in the middle of their home turf. Suppose that, for once in your life, you don’t have any illegal substances, contraband, falsified documents, lewd literature or outstanding warrants on you…
Seriously, you need to get your life together.
Anyways if we’re supposing so much, let’s also suppose that you’re kind of cornered, like stuck in an ocean of clouds and you’re only an average flyer.
What do you do?
I’m not really sure, but in this case, you definitely don’t run.
I learned this one the hard way.
As an aside, if you are carrying any of the things listed above, and/or you aren’t so cornered, feel free to run.
Take it from me, a former authority.
Of course, being a former authority doesn’t really mean much. It’s not stopping Silver from dragging me by my ear.
“Owww…”
No, not anything dignified like, say, putting me in an arm lock. No, he has to drag me around the like a parent drags around a foal throwing a tantrum. He’s not even putting in all his effort. He’s just circling the opposite direction of wherever I pull.
It’s too embarrassing…
“Hmm? What’s this? Weren’t you the same punk who was making an ass of himself in the stands a moment ago?”
Now that the stage was cleared of everypony but us two, I finally had a chance to get a good long look at Silver, to try and read what sort of pony he was
My impressions weren’t promising.
When you look at most older ponies, you get a sense of something dulled or smoothed, their edges eroded by the tides of time.
But not Silver.
From his from the way he carries his speech, to the way he brandishes his words, to the way he throws his glare, everything about him suggests sharpness. The tides of time had eroded his points into a single, sharp blade.
Tricking him is going to be tricky…
“Guilty as charged.” I shrugged.
“Well, what’s the matter? You were such a chatterbox back there. Why are you wasting breath running instead of wasting your breath answering questions?”
“Questions? What questions? I didn’t hear any questions.”
“I’d ask if you were deaf, but it would feel disrespectful to compare you to somepony I know.”
I flared out my wings and dusted off my Pegasus sign language
<“Oh yeah, totally completely deaf.>
“Do you hug your mother with those wings?!”
<“…no?”>
Okay so maybe my wing language is a little rusty…
“Well…” He gave another sharp tug. “Now that you’ve answered one question, let me jog your memory on the others.”
Honestly considering trying to rip my ear off just to spite this guy…
“What exactly were you doing there?”
“Floating.”
“Why are you here in general?”
“Philosophically? Nothing. I, like all ponies, was born for no reason, will live for no reason, and die for no reason.”
“Why didn’t you leave when I was calling every pony to the exit?”
“I got lost?”
“Why was your first instinct when you saw me was to run?”
“I couldn’t help that last one! You’re just so intimidating… your grizzled looks, your chiseled physique, your wizened grey mane…it’s like you jumped straight out the cover of a romantic bridle ripper novel, and me without my bridle…”
“…”
“When I saw your face, my heart beat so fast that I couldn’t help but run! Your ear tugging really isn’t helping. Ah~!”
His facial expression stayed unchanged. “If you’re trying to get me to loosen my grip by weirding me out, it’s not working.”
Drat.
“Do you honestly think that you’re clever?” He asked
“I dishonestly think that I’m clever. Enough to fool myself and others, in that order.”
His grip tightened with every word I said, and my ear started ringing from the pressure. I can only stall so long. I need time to think…
“Oh, are you two dancing?” A high pitched voice said from our left.
Hello distraction!
Jutting out of the clouds was an equally fluffy puff of yellow, seemingly floating on its own.
…not exactly what I was thinking of but I’ll roll with it.
“Yellow Puffy Madness, Help! This scary old man is bullying me!”
It giggled in response. “I’m sorry, you’ve got me confused with my second cousin! I’m…”
The tuft sunk into the clouds as she left her sentence hangi—
“SURPRISE!”
A white mare, with a puffy yellow mane and sky blue eyes burst out from the clouds behind us, sending enough of a shock through me that I flinched away, pulling further on my ear.
“Gah!”
“Silver!” she placed her hooves on her hips and took a scolding tone, “I’m ashamed of you! You’re the lead in the dance! You’re supposed to keep things like that from happening!”
I winced at her high pitched admonishments. “Didn’t I say he was bullying me?” I earned another yank for that statement.
She shrugged “Bullying, dancing, tomayto, tomahto…”
Note to self: NEVER TAKE THE DANCE FLOOR WITH A WONDERBOLT.
Silver was about to say something when.
“So!” she interrupted, our confused glares washing right off her back “I was out and about and doing my rounds and rounding my do’s rounding my rounds and doing my do’s, when Silver yells for me. I say ‘What is it?’ and he says a class 2 cloudflood was in the battledome-- which is silly because those never happen inside! Well, unless you’re in a weather factory-- And that I was to rouse up some rookies to roll it up!”
“Er…”
“So I says to silver,” She donned an accent “I says to the big palooka that he must be crazy, cuz there’s never been no class 2 indoors before.” she immediately drops it “but then he opens the door and there it was! So here we are now!” she pointed across the room, now somewhat visible as the room was thinning. Ponies were condensing and rolling up cloud like hay bales and flying them outside, the remainder thinning out as it spread to the new space. “A real mystery huh?”
“Er…It sure is…” I said
“Surprise.” Silver said “It was just a—“
“I was stumped! But then I got thinking and thinking and thinking and then I remembered something! One time I accidentally filled a fog machine with regular ice instead of dry ice and it just dripped water instead of smoke! Then it shorted out! It must have been something like that! So I fly up and what do I see? You two dancing the forbidden ear tango!” She threw her hoof out, pointing with gusto. “So it must be you two! You sneaky sneaks tried to turn the arena into your own personal dance party, and were using us to clean up your mess!” She spun around and took a deep bow, addressing an unseen audience. “This level of reasoning is possible for Surprise! What do you think everypony?”
“…”
“…”
How does Rivet work here?!
I would have killed by now, surrounded by ponies like this!
“Surprise.” Silver said, the syllables weighted with lead.
“Yessir?”
“One, it was just something wrong with the cloud machine. It’s been overdue for maintenance anyways. Two, never refer to me as “A Big Palooka” ever again. Three, we weren’t dancing. Neither you nor this child have earned the privilege of ever seeing me dance, and I don’t think you ever will. I was apprehending him. ”
“Ohhhhhhhhh. Why didn’t you say so in the first place?”
“Beca—“
“And who are you?” She popped up inches away from my face. “What’re you doing that’s got Silver’s tail all wrapped up in knots?”
“That’s what I’ve been trying to figure out.” Silver ground through his teeth, irritation at the interruptions building.
And here it is. The pieces of my con are in place.
It took some effort, but Surprise ended up doing most of the work for phase 1: Unbalancing the speaker and taking control of the pace of conversation. Now to hammer in the nail.
“Weeeeeeeell…” I said, the vowel extending with my grin, “since you’re the crush of a friend of a friend of a friend of a friend, I think I can make an exception for you.”
“What?”
“You can call me Keen.” I said to her. “Not you though.” I said to Silver, his frown deepening. “You can call me Sir.”
“No, the other ting.” Surprise said.
“As for why I’m here, I’ll give I’ll give…”
I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and…
“I’m a secret spy for a shadowy underground organization tracking the Wonderbolts.”
Phase 2: finish the unbalancing by feeding them a lie so obvious they’ll never believe it.
“You’re. What. Now?”
Augh!
Silver’s grip tightened severely after I said my line. Opening one eye, I saw that both Silver and Surprise had tensed up completely, she was even taking up a defensive stance.
What? Did my unbelievable lie strike close to the truth somewhere? Damage control time…
“Yes, yes, it’s exactly as you’d expect. I am an agent of O.R.D.E.R!”
“…What.” Silver’s line was as flat as his eyebrows.
“Order?” Surprise asked.
“Yes! The Organization Restoring Discord’s Eternal Rule! O.R.D.E.R! The ironic ring is catchy isn’t it?”
The silence was punctuated by the slap of Silver facehoofing himself.
“I heard through the grapevine that the Big Kahuna himself was passing through here. I just had to investigate.”
Silver sighed as he addressed Surprised. “Put your hooves down Surprise. He’s just an idiot.”
He then pulled me uncomfortably close. “Listen you little prick.” Silver went forehead to forehead with me. “You know that I know that nopony would be stupid enough to make, much less join, something like that. Especially not when Discord is actually around to disappoint them.”
"You'd be surprised..."
Here it is… catching the obvious lie will create a sense of false security, that they’ve figured me out, and are in control of the situation. The trap is set.
“Well, what do you expect me to say? I mean we’ve set up all this drama and the answer is so obvious, especially considering who I was sitting with. Being forthright will just be disappointing…”
Sorry Rivet, looks like I’m throwing you under the carriage~
I kind of have to, though. The best lies are close to the truth.
Silver pondered for a moment. “Who you were with…” the gears ground together till they found their slots, until his eyes lit up…
…and he let out a groan
“You were with Rivet weren’t you?”
“Took you long enough to remember.” I jeered. “Yeah we’re kind of old school chums, He was torn apart about his little slap on the hoof, so I offered to visit him for moral support. You probably know how he can get.”
“Oooooh!” Surprise bounced “You’re Rivet’s classmate? He never mentioned you! Well, he never mentions other ponies anyways, but still! You must be super good with machines too, right? What was he like back then? Do you have any stories?”
I laughed “Enough to stuff a folder or two”
A folder among many in my “Leverage” drawers…
Silver let go of my ear and crosses his forelegs. “And let me guess…” he shook his head “When you two saw the malfunction, Rivet was desperate to see what happened. Since he was told he couldn’t, he sent you to peek in his stead?”
“Poor guy…” Surprise said. “He’s been acting somewhat out of character ever since Spitfire probated him. Like if he’s being written by the wrong writer… Between us three, I kinda think Spitty needs a bit of a vacation herself…”
There it is.
The trick to a good lie isn’t to try and fool someone else.
Silver seems sharp enough that I wouldn’t be able to fool him with anything I say, not without some preparation time.
No, the trick to a good lie is to let a pony fool themselves, just subtly lead them to making their own wrong answer.
My horrible lie at the start makes any lie that follows seem more plausible.
And even if he has doubts, Surprise believing it too adds more confirmation, a majority rule against him.
Even if he catches on later, I can play coy and say that I never really confirmed anything.
And with that, reality is rewritten, and Keen Eye the painter/ex-detective is rewritten as Keen the overly generous engineer…
“You can probably guess why I put in so much effort in trying to get away, even if it was useless…”
“Oh! Oh! I know!” Surprise waved her hoof “You didn’t want Rivet to get in trouble right? How sweet~”
Silver groaned. “How exactly does a good kid like him surround himself with troublemakers?”
I shrugged. “I’ve wonder that myself. My guess is because he’s too pure. That sort of good natured single minded personality is bound to attract poison to it, like fresh meat to monsters."
“...Right” Silver obviously didn’t buy my reasoning.
“So, grand detectives, you solved the mystery, what happens now? Forced into chores? ejected from the premises? Rivet getting fired? Or do I have to sell you two my body in exchange for silence?”
“I…” As my last words were processed through Silver’s skull, his sentence switched lanes “Just…just follow me. An idiot like you would probably make a mess of any order I give, and getting rid of you will probably make Rivet do something more drastic.”
“Aye Aye, captain” I mocked a salute.
“Wait!” Surprise pulled me by the arm “You still didn’t say who my crush was!”
I smiled “A gentleman never kisses and tells~”
“You’re kissing my crushes?! You’re awful!”
“I can offer you an indirect kiss from them~” I puckered my lips
“Ewww…”
“Surprise!” Siver snapped “Stop clowning the clown and get to work.”
“Yes sir!” and with that, the yellow puffy madness dove back into the clouds.
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“You, stay here.”
The flight to the exit had been uneventful. Now that they had made some headway on the clearing, I could see some of the makeup of the cleanup team. There were others, but it looked like every pony that wasn’t injured in the sparring was helping out.
I get the feeling that the volunteering wasn’t so voluntary for them.
They had been caught up in work or contentious enough to ignore us, save for a pair of harsh glares at opposite sides of the room, from Rainbow Dash and Swift Justice respectively.
Ah, was he able to hear me talking to Surprise?
Well, I never named names so he doesn’t have reason to retaliate.
Probably.
“Huh? And where are you going?” I asked
We were now standing among some of the engineering team, who were waiting along the sides of the doors for their chance to perform their repairs.
“Giving Rivet a dictionary. He seems in dire need of a reminder on the definitions of ‘Probation’, ‘Vacation’, and ‘Relax’.”
I laughed “Good luck on that, you’ll need it.”
“I’ll also be asking about you.” Silver said. “If his story matches yours, then I’ll send him to collect you and we’ll get on with our lives. If it doesn’t, then…let’s just say I’ll pick you up where we left off.”
My ear reflexively twitched.
"Keep an eye on this punk for me, will you?” He addressed the engineers as a whole. They nodded and saluted unsynchronized
“Wait!” I reached out to Silver as he turned away. “Before you go, one question.”
“Make it quick.” He said, his frown etched slightly deeper into his face.
“I was just admiring your charisma. You really had a way with words in there. You were almost as entertaining as the fights themselves. Considering we saw a pony dislocate their leg for fun, that’s quite an accomplishment.”
“Get on with it.” He said. “I have better things to do than listen to insincere flattery.”
“I was just thinking back on something you said earlier… “You’re Wonderbolt Recruits. That means that before you’re recruits, you are Wonderbolts.” Such an idealistic sentiment… It got me wondering. As you know, personality-wise, there’s two different types of ponies—“
“Let me guess.” he said, impatience clear in his tone. “Ponies who believe that there are two types of ponies and ponies who don’t?” He rolled his eyes.
“Right, Right.” I nodded. “But within that division is another division. There are ponies who love ideals, and learn to hate ponies for failing to live up to them, and there are ponies who love ponies, and learn to hate ideals for weighing ponies down.
“Really?” his question dripped sarcasm “absolutely no middle ground?”
“Well, it’s more of a spectrum, but still, loving all things equally is just another form of apathy. I have a hunch, but I wanted to hear it from the pony’s mouth…Tell me Silver, what type are you? What do you love? What do you hate?"
“…”
“If you’re curious, I’m the second type myself.”
“Who do I love? My wife. Who do I hate? My ex. I don’t have the time or energy to worry about loving or hating any other nonsense.”
Avoiding the question entirely, the denial idealist and antipathic equinist parted ways.