It was that time once again. Time for the grown-ups of the family to take care of the bills, which was always a nightmare. There were scraps of paper strewn out all over the dining room table that all demanded money for something or other. Even with Rarity's booming fashion career, it was still rather difficult keeping up with all the family's finances. Spike's job as a delivery dragon for Pizza Shack helped a little bit, but at a minimum wage salary, staying out of the red wasn't that easy.
Speaking of red, while Rarity and Spike were busy tallying up numbers, Ruby showed up wearing a pirate's hat and eyepatch and waving a plastic sword around. "Ahoy, Mommy!" she shouted, giving her mother start. "Wanna play pirates with me?"
"I'm sorry, Ruby," the white mare sighed. "We can't right now. We're in the middle of paying all these taxes that simply cannot wait. Although, some of these charges are inexplicable. When did anypony in this house ever buy a timeshare in Saddle Arabia?"
"I have no idea," Spike responded.
Suddenly, there came a loud, obnoxious screech that was all too familiar. Jade was upstairs blasting her music over the speakers. There was no way the parents would be able to focus on their work with such noise going on, so Spike headed upstairs to deal with it.
"HEY!" He shouted at Jade as he opened the door. "TURN THAT DOWN! WE'RE TRYING TO DO THE BILLS DOWN THERE!"
Jade turned down the volume to a more reasonable level. "Jeez, Dad. You don't have to shout," she said nonchalantly.
"You don't have to crank up those amps all the way, you know. No wonder the electric bill's so high."
"Sorry, but you know how I like it loud. Oh, by the way, we're all out of snacks."
"What? How is that possible?! I just went to the store and loaded up two days ago."
"Hey, what do you expect? You've got, like, five stomachs and six mouths to feed. Besides, the twins eat more than all of us put together."
Just then, the two headed brothers walked by inhaling a bag of chips. "What? We're growing dragons," Onyx defended, spraying crumbs everywhere as he talked.
Rarity decided it was time for a quick bathroom break, but when she got there, Topaz was already standing next to it. She heard the sound of running water along with her daughter's singing. "Is Citrine still in the shower?" she asked.
"Yep," Topaz answered. "She's just taking her sweet time in there like she always does."
"Honestly. It's been almost an hour," Rarity sighed in annoyance. She knocked on the door. "Oh, Citrine!" she called. "If you're quite done wasting all that water, other ponies are waiting to use the restroom."
The faucet creaked and the water stopped. "Sorry, Mom," Citrine called from inside. "I'll be out in a minute."
"Oh well. No matter. I'll just go use the one in our bedroom."
As her mother entered the other bathroom and shut the door, Ruby couldn't help but feel bad for her. "Gosh," she said. "Mommy and Daddy are really stressed out today, huh."
"Yeah," Topaz answered. "Tax time always does that to them."
"Why's that?"
"Because there's a lot to pay for. Electricity, the phone, the house, the car..."
As if on cue, Citrine stepped out of the bathroom with a bathrobe on and a towel wrapped around her head. "Not to mention water," Topaz concluded in a snarky tone toward his older sister.
"Sorry. I just tend to lose track of time when I'm in there," the oldest defended.
"Sure you do," Topaz condescended. Citrine, not wishing to be insulted any further, walked off to her own room to get dressed.
Ruby turned back to her brother. "Hey. You wanna play pirates with me? I'll even let you be me first mate." She said the second part with a very thick seafarer's accent.
"Yeah, sure," the blue colt agreed. "Right after I take care of some urgent personal business." He quickly entered the bathroom and closed the door behind him.
-----
Later that night, Ruby got out of bed, unable to sleep. She walked down the hall to ask her daddy for a glass of milk. Before she could knock on the door, though, she heard the sound of his voice on the other side. He sounded pretty upset, too.
"Just look at this!" he complained. "These kids are bleeding us dry!"
"Simmer down, dear," Rarity told him. "It's not as if we haven't dealt with this sort of financial trouble before."
"I just can't believe it. Even with your career, we can still barely afford to keep our own house because we've gotta pay for all the kids' stuff, too."
"Well now. No one ever said it would be easy taking care of so many children."
Spike sighed. "I know. It's the life we chose to live. I just wish it wasn't so dang expensive."
Ruby couldn't help but feel a little guilty for causing her parents so much stress. She wished there was something she could do to help them out. And then she got an idea. Maybe she could find some of old stuff around the house and sell it to make money. Then she could help pay some of the bills for them. She was so excited, she couldn't wait to get started.
Then suddenly, she heard her mom speak again. "Oh, Spike. I think we could both use some stress release tonight," Rarity said softly.
"Uh, I don't know, Rare. I'm kinda tired," her husband responded.
"Oh, please, Spikey, dear? It'll help me relax." Ruby couldn't see, but her mommy sure sounded pouty.
"Well, okay," her daddy giggled. "Since you put it that way."
Before she could hear anything else, the little dragon walked away and headed for the attic. It seemed like a good place to start since there must be plenty of useless old junk up there to sell. Looking up at the hatch on the ceiling, she couldn't help but feel just a little bit scared. She had never been up in the attic by herself before, but she knew she had to do it. The chord to open the hatch was pretty high up. Ruby jumped with all her might to try and reach it, but to no avail. She tried again and again, but she just couldn't reach it.
"Come on, Ruby. You can do it," she told herself. "Just pretend it's a sapphire donut." Ruby concentrated, envisioning the chord as a delicious glazed donut with sapphire sprinkles hanging from a string, and made one more swift jump for it. At last, she was able to grab the chord and pull down the ladder to the attic.
When she got up there, it was so dark that she could barely see a thing. She felt all over the wall until she found a light switch. Just as she thought, there were boxes upon boxes and assorted junk everywhere. She figured any box would do, so she decided to start with the first one she saw. It wasn't very big, but it was still pretty heavy. When she tried to lift the box over her head, she lost her balance and dropped it, causing the contents to spill out all over the floor.
As Ruby went to pick up the mess, she saw that the box was full of old news paper clips and documents. The first one she saw had the headline 'Millionaire's Priceless Yacht Captured By Pirates' and showed a picture of a very large, expensive-looking boat. The little dragon couldn't help but wonder why her parents would have something like this. Then she picked up another article, which read 'Deadly Pirates Still At Large.' The subtitle below it read 'Royal Officers Offer Reward of 500,000 Bits For the Capture of the Rogue Diamond Pirates.'
Looking at the pictures that came with it, Ruby couldn't believe her eyes. Along with the face of a blue pegasus mare with rainbow hair that she didn't recognize, was a picture of a much younger version of her aunt Applejack. And next to that were the faces of... her own parents!
She couldn't believe it. Her parents were pirates! After taking a second to process all the questions in her head, she came to realize something important. Where there are pirates, there's treasure!