49: Unpaid Dinkternship
“It’s been a long while since we’ve done this!”
Derpy touched down on the roof of Karyn’s dorm with the beach chairs on her hooves and Karyn herself mounted on her back.
“It has. The winter was so long and so cold that we’re lucky there aren’t still piles of snow slowly melting.”
Derpy struggled with the chair for a moment until Karyn came over to help. “Even today it’s not that warm. I hoped that with the sun out we’d at least feel hotter.”
“I know what you mean,” said Karyn. “The air’s too cold.”
“Maybe Princess Celestia should come here and raise your sun faster for you.”
“I wonder if that would even work. The spell might be different for a round world.”
Derpy nodded, more interested in obtaining the optimal relaxation position on the chair that was never made for her species. Once she was curled up into a fetal position, watching Karyn at a ninety-degree angle, she gave a satisfied smile.
Karyn followed up her thought. “Do you think that the princess would like to come here? I’d be the only one she could talk to, but she could be invisible as you are, and tour our world.”
“I don’t know how everypony would react to that. It’s hard enough for her to work her schedule enough just to visit Fillydelphia. Leaving Equestria entirely? There would probably be riots.”
“You’re probably right. She’s kind of caged in there. I’m not surprised that she made Twilight a princess. Maybe in another century or so she’ll be able to take a vacation.”
“But it definitely can’t happen now,” said Derpy. “It’s too important for her to stay in Canterlot.”
“Why? What’s so important going on now?”
“Teaching my Dinky, of course!”
Karyn wanted to keep quiet so no one would hear them, but couldn’t resist a laugh. “How has she been, by the way?”
“Just fine. No complaints from Princess Celestia about her not doing her homework. Naturally she doesn’t have time for many conferences, but her reports indicate that she’s sure Dinky will be a great unicorn someday.”
Karyn remembered her private conversations with Dinky, how she wasn’t all that ambitious. She considered it one of her duties as a friend to try to sell to Derpy Dinky’s idea of a happy and simple life.
“What do you think she’ll do for a living?”
“Well, anything she wants, of course. Maybe she’ll go back and teach at the school herself. She can rename it, ‘Dinky Hooves’s School for Gifted Unicorns.’ Or maybe she’ll be a magic scientist, like Twilight is on occasion.”
“I wonder about that sometimes. Can magic really be scientifically analyzed?”
Derpy shrugged. “I’m just a pegasus, so I can’t give you all the details, but Dinky said something like that science can look at magic and understand it in one context, and magic can look at science and understand it in another.”
“That’s deep.”
“It is. Of course, maybe Dinky won’t do anything important like that. She might just go into business and make a pile of bits.”
Now was Karyn’s moment. “What if she just wants to work for somepony else and earn a salary from them?”
“I’m sure it’ll be a big salary. She won’t stay in the internship she has now.”
“Dinky’s in an internship?”
“I didn’t tell you?” said Derpy. “I thought I was telling everypony.”
“But that’s incredible! You should be so proud of her. My mom’s still bugging me about when I’ll get my first real job.”
“You probably don’t have Princess Celestia’s credentials behind you.”
“Good point.” Karyn sat up and grinned. “You think that would work? I can say that my friend’s daughter is a student of royalty, so give me a job and you’ll have clout with high-level ponies?”
“It would certainly be unique.”
“It would. People who are hiring hate unique. They want safe. So what’s Dinky doing?”
“She’s working in a store on the outskirts of Canterlot,” said Derpy. “She complains about the commute, but she says it’s a good impetus for her to learn long-distance teleportation spells.”
“What kind of a store? Like, a food store?
“No, it’s kind of a curio place. They sell all sorts of strange artifacts and such that the owner collects, and some of them have magical properties. That’s why it’s good for a student of magic to work there.”
Karyn pictured such a store in her head, and wondered if it was the one she was thinking about. “I can’t imagine that kind of business is very profitable.”
“More than you’d think. Apparently a long time back, he had a very rare item indeed, and was able to sell it for a whole bag full of bits. Ever since then, the shop has been stable enough that the keeper can take on a helper or two. Dinky says it’s not all research and learning. She still has to sweep out the store and such. She doesn’t like it, of course, but that’s why I tell her to keep working, so that someday she’ll have somepony doing the sweeping for her.”
“The rare item, was it the Alicorn Amulet?”
Derpy looked up, trying to remember. “I don’t know. It might have been. The owner wears a distinctive hat, if that helps.”
“It does. I think I know the shop.”
“A very distinctive hat. It even looks like a muffin.”
Karyn sat up. "Always with the muffins. Just for that, you have to take me to see Dinky.”
“That’s fine. You and she can have another study session.”
“Or I can help her out with the job.”
Derpy rolled off of the lounge chair and slid over to Karyn, who climbed on top. She took off as they teleported to Equestria.
Karyn thought that taking the commuter train from Ponyville to Canterlot was almost becoming routine for her, and vowed not to let that happen. She was still, after all, traveling in a fantasy world of talking ponies.
If the train was a routine she did not want to become inured to, walking around Canterlot to the stares of the ponies was one she would have given up. They trotted quickly to reach Dinky’s dorm.
“Hi, Mommy. Hi Karyn. I’d complain about you not letting me know that you were coming, but it wouldn’t stop you from doing next time.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” said Derpy. “You know, Octavia the cellist was talking about the same lesson just last week.”
“You dropped in on Octavia without notice?!”
“No, I was talking about her marefriend, who always ruins her concerts.”
Karyn tapped Derpy on the shoulder. “But we did drop in Octavia without notice.”
Dinky gave her mother an accusing glance, but Derpy just returned it. “Aren’t you supposed to be at work right now?”
“No, I’m supposed to be getting ready for work which I would then have to be at in a half hour. But I can’t do that when I’m in the doorway talking to you.”
Derpy had to spend a few moments parsing that, then hustled in so that Dinky could continue preparing.
“So school’s been going well?”
Dinky was in her washroom, shouting to make herself heard over the faucet. “Yeah, Princess Celestia says I’ve been doing better. Still, I’ll be glad when term is over in a few weeks.”
Karyn cringed. Dinky was being honest, but she still worried about handling Derpy’s tendency toward tiger parentage gently. To that point, Derpy said, “Then you’ll really be able to concentrate on your job.”
“Well, that too, but on the weekends and breaks I won’t even have to study. I’ll have no responsibility for the first time in a while!”
Derpy pursed her lips at that. “Well, so long as you’re ready for next term, I suppose that’s all right.”
“I will be. Actually, I think that the problems I had before, that Karyn’s helped me out on so well, might have been a blessing in disguise.”
“What do you mean?” asked Karyn.
“Well, Princess Celestia’s big on seeing everypony in class make improvements on their work. Some of my classmates started out ahead of me, but haven’t come up much. I was struggling, but now I’m doing well, so she’s even more impressed.”
She shut off the tap and emerged, putting her mane in a ponytail. “If I had known that from the beginning, I might have played dumb from the start so I could really show improvement.”
“Dinky,” said Derpy.
“I’m just kidding, Mommy.”
Derpy still wasn’t impressed. Karyn tried to defuse the situation.
“So what kind of spells have you been learning lately?”
“Well, I told you about perception spells, right? Clairvoyance and all that? We’ve really drilled down on those, which is a good thing, because it’s helped me at work.”
“Tell me about that,” said Derpy.
“Well, Mr. Pincenez—that’s the shopkeeper, wants me to learn how to tell fake artifacts from genuine ones. He says that lots of ponies come in trying to sell things they claim to have gotten in distant lands, but have really just slapped together in their workshops, or bought from somepony who cheated them. He’s had to explain to more than one that the Sapphire Stone was just made up for the Daring Do novel, and doesn’t really exist.”
“Sounds like interesting work. Maybe I should try to introduce the service at the post office. Ponies can send their things to you and you’d be able to tell if it’s real.”
Dinky was skeptical. “I don’t think there’s as much fraud in the magazines that ponies read at the salon as there is in the ancient artifact racket.”
Karyn leafed through some of the books that Dinky had on her desk. “So can I help you with any of this?”
“There are some things that you have to be magical to understand. Say that you’re brought Starswirl the Bearded’s hat. You would have to run certain tests to see if he ever wore it.”
“We actually might be able to authenticate it through science. If we had a hair of his in the hat, and we also had a hair we knew was his, we could compare the chemical structure of both to see if they were the same.”
Both ponies stared at Karyn. “You can do that?” asked Derpy.
“Well, not myself. But humans who go in for that kind of thing can.”
“Wow.” Dinky looked toward her books. “And I have to do it magically. Maybe you can teach me that chemical trick and I could use it to cheat on my test. I’m kidding, Mom.”
Dinky’s disclaimer was timely, as Derpy had already opened her mouth to rebuke her filly.
“So when do you have to be at work?” asked Karyn.
Dinky looked at the clock. “Basically, now. I’m sorry you had to come all this way when I’m busy, but…”
“But why don’t I hang out with you while you’re working? If the boss won’t come down too hard on you for having a friend there.”
“Are you kidding? If word gets around that there’s a human in the shop, it’ll only help business, and he’ll be fine with it. Mr. Pincenez’s rule is that anything that’s good for business is good.”
They left Dinky’s dorm and walked at a brisk pace. The school was already somewhat far from downtown Canterlot, and where they went was only farther toward the outskirts. If the city could be said to have bad neighborhoods, this would be one of them. Although it was still the middle of the day, the shadows in the alleys gave it a creepy feeling of night.
Dinky slid the door open as quietly as she could, but it still rang a bell that was attached to the door jamb. “Hello?” she called. “Mr. Pincenez? It’s Dinky.”
Not only was there no response, but the echo of the bell cut off sooner than Karyn would have expected. “Doesn’t seem like he’s here,” she said, to break the silence.”
“No. I’ll just go to work then, tidying up.”
“You do that, little one,” said Derpy. “I’m sure I can find something to occupy myself with.” She trotted off and flew back toward the castle in the center of the city.
Derpy liked flying in Canterlot. There were few pegasi around, and if she did bump into something, it was more likely to be a skyscraper which wouldn’t demand an apology. If the unicorns on the ground laughed at her, she was high enough that she couldn’t hear it, which was enough for her.
She wound back to Dinky’s school. “If she knew I was doing this, she’d be unhappy. But I have to do things like this. I’m her mother.”
Landing just as the front door to the school closed behind somepony else who was leaving, she opened it again and marched up to the receptionist, who was filing her horn.
“Welcome to Princess Celestia’s School for Gifted Unicorns. How can I help you?”
“My name is Derpy Hooves. My filly goes here. Can I speak to the princess please?”
The receptionist blinked. “I’m sorry. You want to speak to the princess?”
“That’s right.”
“Princess Celestia?”
“She’s the one who’s name’s on the door.”
“Because your filly goes here.”
Derpy’s smile never wavered. “You’ve got it.”
“Do you have an appointment?”
“Nope! I figured I’d just drop in and see if she was free.”
“I see. Well, Princess Celestia is very busy, so if you’ll just—“
“Why don’t you just try sending a message to her chamber? It’s quite possible you’re right, and that she’ll say, ‘Derpy who?’ But I think she’s the type who’ll make time for a parent.”
Skeptical, the receptionist looked at her console. It was nothing that Derpy understood, but when the unicorn touched her horn to a contact on it, a magic pulse went out. “Have a seat and wait for an answer.”
Derpy, still grinning, flapped over to the couch and watched the bored receptionist. A few minutes later, she was pleased to see her jaw drop as Celestia herself walked into the room.
“Hello, Derpy. It’s wonderful to see you again. Shall we go into my office?”
Derpy accompanied her, to the shock of the pony behind the desk.
“Thanks for seeing me on short notice,” she said. “I don’t have anything too pressing, but with the end of term coming up, I want to make sure that Dinky’s in the best position she can be in.”
“Quite understandable. And don’t worry about the short notice. You gave me an excuse to leave a boring meeting. If I had my way I’d limit myself to raising the sun and administering the school. They’re the most important jobs I have.”
Celestia looked over at a file cabinet and magically pulled open the drawer marked “H.”
“Is that Dinky’s record?” asked Derpy.
“It is. And at this point there’s nothing to worry about from your part. Just because a term is ending doesn’t mean that I specifically mark the students then. I can give tests based on paper and quills, or I can ask my little ponies to perform magic for me, but it’s under controlled conditions. Wherever possible I like to test them in real situations. But as yet, the opportunity hasn’t come for Dinky.”
“But do you think, when it does, that she’ll be ready?”
“If she’s not, then it’s not the right opportunity. It is not my intention to make every Gifted Unicorn into a complete study machine. My job is to find their potential and see to it that they reach it. How deep that potential is is up to the unicorn.”
Derpy nodded. “I wish that you had run a school for Ungifted Pegasi. I could have used that. But no self-pity. If Dinky does get her test, and if she passes, what then?”
“Then she will have a reward.”
“A higher class? A secure position?”
“The confidence that comes with the knowledge of a job well done.”
***
Back at the shop, Dinky was sorting through a box of artifacts, magically pulling them out and depositing them gently on the shelves.
Karyn could make no sense of the way things were organized, and wondered if they were arranged by their place of origin, which she wouldn’t know.
“So your Mr. Peachfuzz hasn’t shown,” she said to Dinky. “Maybe he’ll take the day off and you’ll have an easy time of it.”
“And what have we here?” a mysterious voice from behind Karyn said. “Some sort of hornless minotaur?”
Karyn grimaced as another pony tried to fit her appearance into a paradigm they already knew.
Dinky ran over. “Sorry, Mr. Pincenez. This is my human friend, Karyn, who comes from the parallel dimension of Earth. I hope it’s all right if she stays for my shift.”
“It’ll be fine if you keep busy,” he said.
Dinky redoubled her efforts as the shopkeeper kept looking at Karyn while trying to appear as though he wasn’t. Finally he came right up to her. “So…parallel world?”
“Yes. We only knew about ponies through stories until Lyra and Derpy broke through.”
“I see. And, just for curiosity, how old is your world?”
Karyn thought about the question. “I’m not sure what you mean. The planet itself is about four and a half billion years old, but our history is only around five thousand.”
He continued rubbing his hooves together. “Five thousand, you say. Do your people go in for archiving their history?”
“Some of them. Archaeologists, we call them. They love to hunt up relics of the past and study them to find out what ancient people were like.”
Mr. Pincenez’s eyes flashed gold. “Study, yes. Is yours the kind of world where the magic diminishes with time or increases?”
Karyn finally understood, and was a little bit happy that she could say, “Ah, we don’t have any magic at all. If ponies hadn’t designed the magic to break through to Earth, we could have never done it.”
“I…see.” He ambled over to Dinky. “Miss Hooves, perhaps in the future you could clear future visitors with me. The shop does have a certain reputation to uphold.”
For the rest of the shift, Mr. Pincenez seemed to go out of his way to find fault with Dinky’s work, criticizing her sorting, calling her out for not recognizing a certain artifact, and constantly reminding her not to drop anything, even though Karyn could not recall anything ever falling out of a magic field.
She tried to make amends, or at least to distract him. “So, Mr. Pincenez, do you have any new items comparable to the Alicorn Amulet? I heard that tale so long ago, but—“
“Naturally I knew nothing about that amulet’s corrupting effects!” he said, “and I certainly have eschewed anything similar. However…for a non-magical creature…” He turned away and looked through a box. Whatever the arrangement of the shop, he seemed to know where everything was.
“A hand mirror?” said Karyn.
“Yes. Isn’t it nice?”
Dinky came over. “Mr. Pincenez, you can’t sell her something out of the Black Magic box. Karyn, don’t buy it. It’s sure to be something that either lets you eavesdrop on your friends only to find out that they hate you, or it’ll show your heart’s desire and you’ll become addicted to it, or it’ll make you look like the most beautiful girl, but turn you ugly inside or something like that.”
“It’s a moot point,” said Karyn. “since I don’t have the bits to spend on anything, and I’m not going to ask Derpy to buy me something I don’t need.”
He looked over his glasses, muttering. “No magic, and no money. Why in the name of—Princess Celestia!”
Derpy had returned to the shop with the princess in tow.
“Hi, little one! Are you having fun at work?”
“For the most part. Hello, teacher.”
Mr. Pincenez’s speech faltered. “Y-y-you know the princess?!”
“Well, I am going to her school.”
Celestia gestured to Derpy. “I got the word that your mother was in town and decided to take the opportunity to update her on your progress. About which I couldn’t be happier.”
Derpy did not correct the white lie, concluding that if anypony had reason to do so, it was a white pony.
The princess then looked at the shopkeeper. “And I also would like to thank you. It warms my heart to see ponies of the community spreading their bits around to the younger generations.
Dinky said, “Well, technically, Princess, he doesn’t—“
“Doesn’t mind in the least!” Mr. Pincenez interrupted, “rewarding such an industrious and well-connected filly, whose salary has just doubled.”
“But sir, doubling no—“
“Doubled!” he said, with one eye on Celestia, “from its base of three hundred bits a week.”
Whether Princess Celestia realized his deception or not, she smiled at him. Dinky took the opportunity to try to mollify him. “Why don’t we let Karyn go back with Mommy? I’ve got plenty of work to do if I’m going to earn my new salary.”
“And I’m sure Princess Celestia has to get back to ruling the world,” said Derpy.
As Karyn walked back to the train station with Derpy, she said, “I think I’m a little jealous. Dinky’s working and making money, and I’m still not.”
“Do you think you’ve done well in school?”
“Huh? My grades are all right.”
Derpy stopped. “Then what Princess Celestia told me was right. The knowledge of a job well done is the best reward.”
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Of course it can! Science is about gathering data, then making hypotheses and testing them. It works the same way whether the subject is 'magic' or 'electricity'.
Is that a reference to Narnia, by any chance?
2442855 Narnia and Harry Potter
2443386
Karyn doesn't keep up with the latest archaeology news!
2442749what is electricity? Besides some kind of energy and the movement of i think electrons?
Are you certain this shouldn't be "her" or "with his"? Although "nuzzling with his nose" is a little redundant. I guess it's also just as well the boss wasn't interested in Earth or he might be trying to get his hooves on our technology-- apparently even the cheapest/worst mp3 player is space age tech to the ponies. Another thing that I thought of was there must be certain metals or alloys in Equestria that are difficult (to near impossible) to procure without heavy duty magic, but are commonplace in our industrial based world. Something like aluminum for example. If Karyn is short on bits, she could grab a package of foil from the grocery store and sell it in Canterlot for a whole wagon-full of bits. (I doubt the exchange rate is that extreme but you get the idea)
And I assume the reverse would also be true. Take one or two of Spike's snacktime gems and sell it at a jeweler's shop for a fat stack of bills... er, discretely.
2445822 The "who" in that sentence refers to Derpy, since she's the closest noun to the word "who."
And yeah, arbitrage between the worlds could make them a lot of money, but for Karyn I talked about how it would be hard to explain her wealth. That was in "Derputante Ball."
Funny thing: when I typed "noun" my phone autocorrected to "mount."
2446110
And now that I read that quote of mine over again, I realize it was correct all along. My bad.
As for arbitrage yielding sudden wealth, Karyn could just say she won on a scratch ticket?
Truly sly people don't stand out with a sudden pile of money, they accrue it slowly, steadily. Tucking it away into perfectly legal places. Sadly, Karyn is not terribly sly. Then again, with the price of college going higher every year, it seems like you have to win the Powerball lottery just to pay for it. Yeesh. (Some of the horror stories I hear about future college costs are disheartening)
2448972
Scratch tickets are highly regulated. The state that issued them knows exactly who won and where and when the ticket was bought. When the revenue bureau comes to call, they're going to want to know a lot of details that Karyn isn't going to be able to provide.
2450261
To continue this nefarious idea; Kayrn would not have to legally report any winnings under $600. It's only after that point are you required to fill out tax forms when collecting your winnings.
On the Equestrian side, I seriously doubt Derpy would have to worry about the pony IRS, if they even exist there simply due to the small population (one major US city has more people than all the ponies of Equestria). The problem I see here is economic upset from the sudden influx of rare materials and large quantities of bits shuffled into Derpy's hooves. But then I have no idea how their economy works... and WHY it works despite some very very strange quirks. (Quote from Equestrias's Chief Royal Finacial Adviser, Money Bags, "It's magic; I don't have to explain squat!")
I think you meant to write "you've bought".
But, besides that, a nice chapter of a great story. And you've really got me interested with that little sneak peek there. Damn cliffhangers!
2461543
No, I meant in the sense of "Say someone brings you...." But thanks!
Good thing Mr. Artifact Shop owner doesn't know about the human's various magical seeming technologies. I suspect something like a graphing calculator would be worth money in Equestria. And you could uh, enhance it a bit with magic… No? *shifty eyes*
Derpy did not correct the white lie, concluding that if anypony had reason to do so, it was a white pony.
Lol
I guess someone's been to the mage's college of Winterhold...