The idea of freight trains intrigued the stallion and so, with his main assistant out of town on business, there was nothing else for Fancy Pants to do but to investigate this himself.
Rifling through Perfect's drawers, he found the contact list file she had made. While his enterprises hadn't intersected theirs before it didn't mean she wouldn't keep track of them.
"Ah, here we are." The unicorn pulled out the slim file on the ponies who ran the railway. It was quite thin indeed.
A company in contract to supply the railways for the crown, it had been hurting a little bits wise since having to run the line all the way out to the griffon lands and worse still, the attempt at finding anything to the south. "Very interesting. Too big to take over… without planning and time, but still large enough that we can lean a touch."
Slipping the information back into the filing cabinet as well as his mind, Fancy got up from his assistant's desk with a grin. It had been far too long since he had gotten quite so personal with a job.
Trotting out of his office, he made his way across town to where that ghastly queen had been. The ground still had marks on it where the fight had happened and Fancy remembered back to when he first met Fast in her official and current capacity. He and Fleur had volunteered, it hadn't hurt one bit to let the poor things share a little of their love and the looks when the holed and hurt creatures had realized it was given, it was worth it. The pair had visited a few more times, simply to offer assistance. It was the done thing to help a pony in need, after all.
"Is Queen Fast in?" The two changelings at the entrance to the hive were all smiles, it was well known he came and gave, rather than paid.
But they shook their heads. "She is in the castle at present. We have no knowledge of when she will return." Fancy read ponies, it was part of his business. Changelings were not completely the same, but he had also been visiting regularly enough to identify that they weren't worried about their Queen being out of the hive, either.
"I must say, it was awfully wonderful, what she did." No sooner were the words past his lips than both changelings were almost bouncing with excitement.
"She is the best queen ever!"
Fancy smiled at their enthusiasm. "Quite so. Well, give all the hive my regards. If I am unable to meet up with your queen at the castle, would you do me the favor of letting her know I was trying to arrange some business?"
Both changelings seemed to restore their more stoic 'guard-like' personae and nodded. "We will do that."
As the stallion turned to make his way back toward the castle, he thought he heard one of the changelings behind him murmur something, then louder. "Thank you!" He grinned, if doing one's civic duty meant you got to make new friends and potential business partners, well, all the better.
It was a light step that carried him not too far away to the railway works. Sitting back from the station down its own special line of track, the big warehouse-like buildings that housed the trains sat huge on the edge of town.
Some bellowed smoke, others steam as well. "Can ah help ya?"
The unicorn that addressed him clearly hadn't recognized him, so of course Fancy sought education for the mare. "Fancy Pants. I was wanting to see Layin Line?" The mare perked up, recognizing the name if not the face.
"You're that there stallion who owns a lot of things." Her eyes squinted. "Well, you ah talkin' ta Layin herself." She was the picture of a hooves-on type. Grease and oil stained not only the overalls the mare wore but also her mane and tail, both looking like they were trimmed short not by carefull scissors, but rather by some machinery doing something it shouldn't. Her coloring was nearly impossible to figure out.
Fancy's eyes didn't betray, not for a fraction of a second, his surprise. "Miss Line, it is a pleasure to meet you. I think we might need to find somewhere a little more, private, to discuss some business."
"Come ahn then." She turned and clearly intended for him to follow. It wasn't an office she led Fancy to, however. It was one of the smoke and steam billowing sheds!
"Ain't nopony can hear us over ol' Lighting here." She clopped a hoof against the side of the larger than normal locomotive, scooping up a clipboard from the side of it. "Now, why is a pony of your stature down here?" Her voice had lost a lot of drawl and Fancy had to mentally adjust himself.
"Simply put, I represent some ponies who will be wanting to invest in you. You move ponies around fine enough, they want to move more. Much more." He fit bait to hook, he didn't treat her as anything but an equal. It was always the best place to start with anypony.
She reached over and adjusted something on the huge boiler, steam leaping out and seeming to pool around the pair and hide them most perfectly but not actually encroach on them at all. "You speak things that aren't all that new. Pa tried to do more with the rail but nopony saw a use for it at the time. What do you need to move and where?"
Fancy almost danced. Well, not really, but it certainly was good when the pony you were talking to not only understood what you meant but understood what you wanted from them. He reached for his business folder, opening it and withdrawing a rough map of the Crystal Empire. "There is a village located here. We want a short line extended to them, a special station designed to load and unload cargo, crystals in this case. And we of course want matching facilities here in Canterlot."
Layin shook her head. "Lot of bits in that, figger you are good for it. How is the best way to move these crystals?" She had already taken the map, scrawling notes on it. "This accurate for distance?"
Fancy nodded, that much at least was good. "I would say that how to pack them is something we are going to need to talk to the miners about. Jostling might be an issue." She was already tallying up values, three of them.
"Okay, you are going to need a lot of wood for the sleepers, cars and the stations. A whole mess of steel for the rails. Lightning here will finally get to strut her stuff… don't think I won't charge you for her, though. And of course this is only a quote, but we can do this."
Fancy lifted his hoof. Grease and all, Layin gave his a clop and met not a bit of hesitation.
"If you would have your engineers travel to the Crystal Empire, I believe the funds are already there. Of course if we pay for these things, we have the right to charge others to use them." It was a statement, and a sign that he wasn't going to let her get away with anything.
"My lines are mine, you…" Layin froze. Her normal tactics wouldn't work here.
"I say, not really what we were after. What about if we pay for the lines, pay for the cars and the stations. The costs of them buy us a share of your business."
She looked shocked, then thought about it and grabbing chalk in her horn scribbled some stuff on the boiler of her engine. "You get a share based off how much you spend countered by how much we're already worth."
'Perfect,' thought Fancy.
Since it simply wasn't done to visit the castle with grease on your hooves and your hair all sagging from moisture, Fancy made his way home instead.
"Darling?" Fleur's voice came from deeper in the house the moment he had come in. She was practically flying toward him, her hooves so graceful. But she stopped short. "Fancy, what have you been doing?"
She sounded both amused and a little worried.
"My dear Fleur, my sweet flower." Fancy relaxed into the more intimate name he had for his mare. "I need a hug!" He advanced on her, getting a squeal of panic as Fleur spun around and dashed for the bathing room.
By the time he made it in there too she had already started pouring in some cleaning agents to the water, grabbing others. "In you get my darling street urchin, lets see what you are hiding under all that grime!"
He wasn't that dirty, but his heart lifted to see her so. He shucked off his jacket and shirt, vest and concealed saddlebag. His monocle was the last to go as he trotted over and sank into the deep pool-like bath. The brushes attacked him, little glass vials of substances that smelled like flowers would if flowers were a hundred feet tall and built only to make smell. He put up with it until the grease was out of his tail, where he had brushed 'Lightning', and worse than that was out of his hooves and fetlocks.
"Well, look at this, there is a pony under all that." Fleur was against him now, deeming her husband clean enough to be near. "But the question is, is there a stallion?"
Fleur trembled in delight. There had been a stallion under the grease she had cleaned off, she knew because Fancy had shown her.
She was still under him now, the pair laying together in the water and just sharing closeness rather than anything more. "I heard Perfect was out of town?"
"What's that dear? Oh, yes. Needed a pony with a good head on her shoulders and sent her up to the Crystal Empire." He nibbled gently down her mane, getting a slight shiver from Fleur.
"Tell me then dear, who is keeping up the office?" She had wanted this for a while and it was finally her chance.
Fancy was distracted with Fleur's neck, rubbing his cheek along it.
"Fancy!" She arched her neck more though, letting him continue but wanting an answer.
"Nopony right now. Could you believe I had to check into Perfect's files? I may have messed them up a touch."
Perfect… not the mare, Fleur's chance. "Oh, well I am sure she would be upset with that, what about if I pop around and neaten them up."
The stallion's ears perked up suddenly, realizing there was a game ahoof and he wasn't even keeping track of the score. "Oh, well of course darling, if you think… if you think your flowers can spare you."
"Good boy." Fleur approved of Fancy's save. She would show him.
Fancy thought further into this. "In fact, I was needing to head up to the castle later. Maybe we could arrange to have dinner with Queen Fast." This got Fleur's full attention.
"Oh, that would be nice, but… isn't she a changeling? What will the dear eat…" Fleur trailed off, lifting a hoof up and bopping her own forehead in a very not-upperclass way.
Lifting himself from Fleur, Fancy nuzzled all the way down her back, tracing her mane as far as he could before working along spine until he found her tail. It wasn't her time, as she would well know. Was it him?
"You look so sad. Come on my clever stallion, we go to meet two princesses and a queen."
It was hard for anypony to pull him from that particular mood, but Fleur was the mare for the job. Lifting herself free from the bathing pool and heading to the magic-powered drying pad, Fancy was treated to a rare chance to just watch her.
Those long, arching legs, her high tail and delightful features, he got lost in her eyes, when she turned to gaze at him. He even missed what she said for the twin pools that stole his attention. "I said, Fancy, come on or Celestia will be abed and we might miss Fast."
He didn't shake his head, he didn't distract himself in the slightest from her, instead, stepping over and pressing his wet self against the length of Fleur. It got a squeal from her but she used her magic to draw him in and over the pad so they could snuggle while it worked.