The Game and The Garden

by I Thought I Was Toast

The Game and The Garden

The garden was perfect. It was a piece of art really. Flowers spread over beds of soil in brilliant patterns of color. One color would blend smoothly into the next, hinting at a greater purpose for them all. This veritable sea of colors danced and weaved across the entire room. Sometimes it would appear to flow one way only to suddenly snake another, and if one wasn’t careful their eyes would endlessly swirl through the patterns for hours.

Greengrass liked it like that, or at least he used to. It was a reminder of The Game. It was a symbol of the eternal struggle between nobles as a thousand plans, both big and small, wove between one another in an eternal pursuit of power.

Vines climbed the walls, gently embracing the various pipes meant to give life to the flowers below. It was they who watched and decided the fates of the flowers. They guided them here and there by blocking just a little bit of light or redirecting the sprinkler water just slightly as it fell. It was they who ruled above the common flowers, and it was they who had the ambition to rise higher still. It was supposed to appear as the ultimate embodiment of the Night Court.

Right now, however, Greengrass wasn’t sure what he saw.

This isn’t fun anymore!

He’d said that. He’d actually said that about The Game. He’d built himself up so far only to have it all taken away. No one would trust him again after all the words that scourge of a poison had made him say. He might make allies in time, but that would take years. Even worse though was the stigma that would follow him for actually insulting the watcher of the night. It was one thing to dance around the princess for personal gain and yet another entirely for a pony to show any sign they thought themselves better than the ruler of Equestria.

The brown earth pony moved to the center of his private garden. There was a fountain there that he would sometimes just watch for hours. He would stare into the small eddies and currents of the running water and just try and pour all his racing thoughts into them. He would purge himself of the hundreds of different schemes he had to keep track until all that was left where the thoughts that mattered.

“Where’d it go wrong?” The Duke murmured. “I had thought I’d covered every angle. I knew each and every one of my opponents weakness’, so how is it I was outmaneuvered?”

He sat there pouring every scheme and plan he’d ever made into the fountain trying to look for that one little bit of info he’d missed. There had to be some tidbit of info he’d missed somewhere. Was it Lulamoon or Fancypants? No, Lulamoon was still too arrogant and insufferable to hold a candle to someone with experience in the court, and Fancypants had never made a move to eliminate anyone in the court. He was content with his place. Was it one of his own allies then? He didn’t think so. They each appeared to have suffered just as much of Luna’s anger as he had with the capture of the Discordian.

Could it have been Luna herself he miscalculated? No, the princess might never before have raised her anger to the entire court like that, but that wasn’t because of a miscalculation. He had figured out long ago her weakness was fear. No one ever considered that the princess of the night might make mistakes or have flaws, but that was because the princess was too scared to use her own power to make any. She was too terrified that she might take the path of her sister.

Who had he miscalculated then?

Everypony he had ever come in contact with was eliminated one by one. His thoughts on them poured into the fountain only to replaced by thoughts of others he had climbed over in The Game. Finally, the Duke was left with one pony to examine.

“Was it me?” he wondered, gazing into his distorted reflection’s eyes. “I don’t think I’ve ever bothered to examine what my own biggest weakness was before. I was always too busy exploiting the weaknesses of others.”

“That’s silly,” whispered a little voice in the back of his head. “Isn’t it obvious?”

It wasn’t, but Greengrass wasn’t crazy enough to respond to what was surely a stress induced hallucination. The voice didn’t care though. It wasn’t often morality got a chance to speak, much less be heard, in Greengrass’s thoughts.

“Your biggest weakness is and always was The Game. You revel in all its overly complicated schemes like a certain azure and silver-maned unicorn in front of an audience of foals. You bath in the bluffing and backstabbing, and you frolic among the followers and fear you’ve generated from your schemes. I suppose that’s okay if you like it, but let me ask you something.

“If you had ever truly managed to usurp Luna, could you have created the grand utopia you wanted with The Game in place? You can never truly win; you can only stay at the top as long as you can. New players would take the place of the foes you crushed on your rise to the top, and you would be stuck in an endless conflict to hold your position.

“Does that sound like the so called utopia you wanted to run? To me it just sounds like more schemes and plans with no true fruition.”

“It’s a garden that needs weeding, nothing more, nothing less,” muttered Greengrass.

“Maybe... Just be careful you realize exactly what needs to be weeded out of the system...” Despite the reluctance in it’s answer, the voice held a hint of smugness, and the Duke shivered like he’d just said the wrong thing for the millionth time that night.

He turned back to the garden glanced about it’s lush confines once more. The problem was it didn’t seem so lush anymore. He noticed flowers wilting in places his eyes had passed over before, and there were the tiniest sprouts of weeds in the shadows cast by the vines. A small puddle was almost drowning one or two flowers from a small leak the vines had made in the pipes, and the once smoothing flowing patterns now seemed chaotic and disjointed. It was no longer a graceful waltz of color. It was a raging storm of hues that was painful to the eyes. The vines constricted the pipes. They strangled the cold iron, trying to creep their tendrils into the life giving water that fed everything below them.

The Duke’s garden looked like a weed.

It looked like the Night Court.

The Duke didn’t know what to think of that.

…..

“Notary, why are you here?”

Greengrass did not bother to turn around to see who had entered his sanctuary. There was only one pony who would know he was here.

“Princess Luna is waiting for you in your office, sir.” Notary’s tone was professional as always, but the mere fact that Greengrass had heard her coming down the stairs had told him something urgent had come up. After all, he had hired Notary because she and her family were known for being unobtrusive and inconspicuous.

“An audience with the princess?” The Duke laughed. “A couple hours ago and I might have thought it another sign I was moving up in the world, but you’ll forgive me now if I’m less inclined to oblige my executioner.”

“Sir,” Notary intoned, “Forgive me if I’m overstepping my place, but I feel accepting this audience would be for the best. It might be the only way to recover from all the setbacks of tonight.”

“Bah!” Greengrass snorted. “I lost irrevocably this time. You and I both know that. Just go make up some excuse to dismiss the princess so you can go back to finding a new employer with better prospects.”

“Excuse me, sir?”

Greengrass could hear Notary’s eyebrow arch.

“Don’t pull that with me. You have no reason to keep any ties to me anymore. As helpful as you’ve been, we both know there’s no such thing as loyalty in the Night Court.”

“Of course there is, sir.” It wasn’t loud or harsh, but Notary’s reply was sharp. “If I had a jangle for every time one of your enemies offered me compensation to betray you, I’d be richer than the royal coffers.” The mare shook her head. “You have more enemies than there are stars in the sky, but that never mattered to me because it was you who hired me. I had a duty to you and was obligated to meet your expectations, even when it meant that I was helping you break your own obligations and duties.”

“Missing a couple of Night Court meetings is not breaking an obligation, Notary,” the Duke drawled.

“I meant your duty to the common pony, sir,” Notary said, retreating towards the stairs. “Just as the common pony has a duty to serve the Night Court, so too does the Night Court have a duty to remember that it was made to serve the common pony. The Night Court was built on loyalty, sir.” She shook her head. “When you remember that, Luna will be waiting for you in your office. Now, if you’ll excuse me, I need to rest for the inevitable avalanche of paperwork and inquiries you’ll receive about the Gala. Goodnight, sir.”

Greengrass watched the stairs by which Notary had left for awhile. His careful ruminations and schemes were still lost to the events of the night. Eventually he let out a sigh and got back on his hooves. Climbing the stairs, he decided that he might as well get the meeting with Luna over with before she decided to send the Shadowbolts after him. If he was going to recover from this, he’d rather not lose the little dignity he had left by getting bound by Shadowbolts and dragged before the princess.

At the top of the stairs it struck him that Notary had said she’d be coming to work tomorrow, and he couldn’t help but chuckle.

“I guess there is such a thing as true loyalty in the Court,” he said closing the door behind him. He paused for a second, pondering on what he had just said before adding an afterthought. “And maybe I should take a different approach to things.”

“There's always more than one way to play a game, after all.”

Comments

[Dragon Turtle]

Interesting, but a few noteworthy problems:

1) The internal monologue. When used incorrectly, this tool becomes an author self-insert who then proceeds to tell the character exactly what they should be thinking, as opposed to the character reaching anything on his own. This is an example of it being used incorrectly.

2) Notary's defense of Greengrass. It's fine when she begins her exposition, but as it goes on she sounds unrealistically naive. I admit I don't know much about her, as this is the first Greengrass POV fic that I've read. But I know she's closely involved with his schemes, and has filled the role of observer and spy. Surely she must know that both Greengrass and herself have made the lives of other people miserable. That's not to say she would take a different course of action and abandon Greengrass, as her loyalty is something that I can buy into. But that the narrative doesn't acknowledge the illicit activity that they partook in feels like a huge hole in the plot.

3) That final sentence. The biggest complaint I had about Greengrass at the end Grand Galloping Gala story arc was how suddenly he became obsessed with the metaphor of a game. This 180 degree turn feels even more forced, and is a massive epiphany for this character that should only be reached at the end of the story, if that.

[I Thought I Was Toast]

2598666
1. I do sometimes have a problem with handing characters epiphanies. In this case, however, I felt the inner monologue to be more a result of the culmination of all his failures involving the L6. That's not to say it might not still be too sudden.

2. Notary has done some shady things for Greengrass and has indeed hurt some ponies. It's impossible to actually do anything without hurting someone somewhere when dealing with the massive changes politics handles. Her duty is to help him help others. This includes possibly hurting others so his plans can take effect and help others and it includes reminding him he's in this mess because he was focusing too much on helping himself over others. This speech is more of a calculated move on her part to make sure he doesn't dig his own grave.

3. This is a fault of the wording. I chose the final sentence trying to cut off a 180 change. With "not always being a game" referring to it mostly still being a game, but having to learn where to stop and be serious.

[Lev the Lurker]

I thoroughly enjoyed this webisode. While the Gala wrapped up a lot of things quite nicely (and is one of my favorite L!verse stories despite what others say about it), it touched upon far too many characters that deserve a bit of follow up. I believe this one serves Greengrass and Notary nicely, well done

[RainbowDoubleDash]

I'll wait for a group decision on where to place this in the canon. For the record, though, I'm leaning fully canon.

[shutaro]

Very nice. Greengrass is still a capable pony. I hope Luna will recruit him and use him to weed out her garden.
I wonder how the new dames will react when they find out that Greengrass is now on their side.

[RK_Striker_JK_5]

I'm leaning to canon as well for this. Heavily leaning. *Falls over* Ouch!

[Heart of Blades]

As I said back in the forms, I love love love this! It feels like it gives some closure to Greengrass that was sadly missing from the Gala. This is already canon in my mind and I sure hope it becomes official!

[I Thought I Was Toast]

2620580
When/where is that conversation going to happen anyways? Is there going to be some magical meeting of the ents like in Lord of the Rings to decide on where it goes, or is just casually brought up until a conscensus is reached like it seems to have been so far, or are you sneakily sending spy couriers around to get everyone's opinion?

Are you a spy?!?

[RainbowDoubleDash]

2623755
If I was a spy, would I tell you that I was a spy? If I said I was a spy, could you trust that I was a spy? How good of a spy would I be if I went around advertising the fact?

No, actually, I think it'd be best if you brought it up, and we'll see the reaction from there. Right now I'm pretty sure the consensus is canon webisode, though.

[thatguyvex]

Like I said before, I enjoyed reading this; basically scratching an itch that was leftover from GGG and opens some possibilities for the folks among us who like Greengrass and Notary and might want to involve the in future stories.

[HopeFox]

This is a very interesting examination of Greengrass - a good look into what actually makes him tick, and how badly he's screwed things up this time. It's good to see the possibility of change.

[Thegodhand]

Not sure what to make of this since I cant imagine Luna wanting him to stick around for any reason. Just have to wait and see I guess.

[I Thought I Was Toast]

3092184
It's supposed to be up to interpretation until the we decide whether or not to redeem Greengrass. Luna could very well want him for something like a personal announcement of his punishment or something. Or at least it should be... I tried to keep it as open as possible.

[fedback]

In my head luna will recruit him, he is the best player there is.

[TheGreatEater]

3093880

It's supposed to be up to interpretation until the we decide whether or not to redeem Greengrass. Luna could very well want him for something like a personal announcement of his punishment or something. Or at least it should be... I tried to keep it as open as possible.

If we get a closing onto whether he gets the ax, or hired. Would you think of making a sequel to this?