Ponyville Holds An Election

by Soufriere

Chapter 1 - Blah, Blah, Blah, Your Needs

“We asked you to do this months ago!” yelled a random Earth-pony stallion.

“Why isn’t the bridge fixed yet??” a Unicorn snapped.

“What do you mean you don’t know what that smell is?” some Pegasus grumbled.

“I wan’ my bar!!” cried Berry Punch for the third time in a month.

All of these angry ponies directed their ire at a handsome oak desk covered in papers, or more specifically at the harried mocha coloured Earth pony behind it.

Mayor Meyer Mare sat, peering – some might say glaring – at these ponies over her half rimmed glasses, appearing utterly uninterested. She had heard it all before, and would doubtless hear it all again next week, and the week after that, for months and years to come, until the day she died… and probably even after that too.

Well, to say she was completely uninterested in the sufferings of her citizens would be doing her a slight disservice. The Mayor cared very much about the well being of her town; that is why she felt obligated to open her office up once a week for any pony to come in and air their grievances. Unfortunately for them, she had to care about the entire town, and more importantly its budget, so the individual travails of ponies served only to irritate her and make her wonder why in Equestria she bothered.

On the docket for today were any number of minor inconveniences that together made for one giant headache for her and her staff, especially her poor, put-upon secretary Raven Inkwell, who was the one to actually put in the effort to get the bureaucracy to do its job at any pace greater than a dead snail’s. Before that could happen, the Mayor needed to understand what exactly ponies were angry about, and then delegate… or ignore.

“Please. One at a time!” the Mayor said exasperatedly. She unconsciously ran a hoof through her mane. Several grey hairs loosed themselves from her scalp and fluttered unceremoniously to the desk or floor, though she was the only one to notice.

The stallion, an imposing blue fellow, spoke first. “Like I said, you told us you were going to put up better street signs and new lights! I’m tired of getting lost!”

“Maybe you should try getting familiar with your town when it’s not the dead of night,” Berry Punch, the wine coloured Earth pony, said in a half slur. “I’m blitzed most evenings an’ I still get home fine. Well except for that one time… two times… I took a wrong turn and ended up crashing with Rarity. Least I think it was Rarity.”

“No pony asked you!” the stallion snapped as Berry finished off the contents of her flask.

“Besides,” Amethyst Star, the Unicorn, piped in, “You, Mayor, said you would see to it that the bridge over the creek would be fixed. It’s been five months, and I’m worried that if I try to cross it in my wagon, it’s going to collapse and send me and all my things into the water. I can’t swim. Do you really want that on your conscience?”

“Look, I—” the Mayor tried to speak, but Berry Punch cut her off.

“That creek’s, like, a buckin’ inch deep *hic!*,” the very probably drunk Berry drawled as she started to lose consciousness.

“Even so,” Amethyst complained to nopony in particular, “If my wagon and its precious cargo were to get wet, I would expect the City to compensate me for my losses.”

Mayor Mare suppressed a snicker. After all, the idea of financial reimbursement in that kind of situation was, frankly, ludicrous. Celestia was benevolent and generous as far as leaders go, but not that generous.

“I demand to be heard!” the Pegasus, named Raindrops, reiterated. “It’s been over a week and that horrible smell downtown still hasn’t gone away! Are you going to stand here and tell me your people have done nothing to stop it?!”

“Sh’prolly cotton candy or someshizh,” Berry Punch slurred, even less coherently than before. “Yer th’ only pony ta, ta raish a fussh.”

“Of course I would! It gives me a headache!” Raindrops countered.

“Zen take a buckin’… pill, ashh-purr-inn or whatever,” concluded the inebriated Berry.

The Mayor suppressed a smile, because the thoroughly sloshed Earth-pony was not far from the truth. A few blocks away, at the Sugarcube Corner bakery, one of Pinkie Pie’s confectionery experiments had gone awry, coating the entire interior of the building in a patina of exploded essence of cotton candy, a smell that was at once sweet but acrid. A small bit of it found its way to a fireplace, where the vapours wafted up the chimney and onto the unsuspecting town. Suffice to say, Cup Cake had banned Pinkie from attempting any more of her ideas for at least the next year. Although Pinkie had made quite a lot of progress on cleaning up the mess over the previous week, the bakery was still uninhabitable, the Cakes were still stuck staying at a friend’s house, and any pony passing near the place would certainly be overwhelmed by the stench. Especially if that pony stubbornly insisted on flying over the chimney every day, ignoring the ‘Hazard’ signs Rainbow Dash (on orders from the Mayor) had helpfully placed on clouds along the major flyways.

Surprisingly, at least to the Mayor, Berry continued. “You don’t, you don’t know what’s, if yer gonna complain about a smell, don’t fly near it. This offish isn’t your, isn’t your personal ‘do stuff fer me’ outfit, so just shut yer yap. Now, Mayor, here’s what stuff I want ya ta do fer me.”

And now it all makes sense, Mayor Mare thought as she rolled her eyes, preparing to hear the exact same spiel she’d heard so many times before. Berry did not disappoint.

“Sho I wanna get a license for a bar sho I can shell drinks ta thirsty ponies, like me and, uh, me.”

“Berry Punch, I keep telling you I can’t grant you a license to open a bar. It’s outside my authority. Drink laws are very strict here, and you’ll have to get special permission from the Celestial Senate. Besides, I’m not aware of any pony in this town aside from you (and me) who even wants any spirituous liquors other than the Apple Family’s leftover cider.”

“Twilight’s all on board with it,” Berry countered.

The Mayor’s right eye twitched involuntarily at the mention of that name. When it came right down to it, she hated Twilight Sparkle, the purple Unicorn who arrived in town on the back of a Royal chariot nearly a year ago and immediately started ordering around the public employees; the girl who was well known to enjoy the favour of Princess Celestia herself and (intentionally or not) milked it for all it was worth, including setting up her home in what was once Ponyville’s public library and was now off-limits to all but about a dozen of the town’s thousand-plus residents; the girl whose actions had destroyed the town on no less than three occasions but always escaped punishment; the girl who, in the span of six hours, proved Mayor Mare utterly useless at managing Winter Wrap-Up – and worse, proving that the infamous holiday cleanup could be handled competently with enough OCD.

The girl who made Mayor Mare realize how much she hated her job.

How long had she been Ponyville’s mayor anyway? Even she could not remember the exact Celestial Year that the Princess appointed her to fill the post left vacant by the retiring Penstroke, a serious white Earth pony under whom Meyer Mare had served as secretary for well over a decade. As a result of her experience (and her cutie mark), she was seen by most residents as his natural successor. At the time, she agreed. A young, vivacious mare with a bright pink mane, she approached her new position with gusto. It was not long before the stress turned her hair mostly grey – thinking it made her look more distinguished, she dyed the dwindling pink bits to match the rapidly spreading silver – and then made it fall out.

She realized, in a moment of sober clarity, that no matter how much Ponyville’s ponies complained, got angry at her, and insulted her or her staff, the truth was that they had had no say whatsoever in placing her in the Mayor’s office. Certainly, residents could send a letter to the Senate (or Celestia herself) asking she be dismissed, but this had long been a town whose citizens were unable to even choose between two candy shops; getting a large enough number to sign a petition to have her removed was laughable.

Maybe she could try, though.

But first she needed to deal with the small matter of the quartet of irritated ponies gathered at her desk.

“Look,” Mayor Mare began, “Berry, Raindrops, Amethyst, and… whoever you are,” she said to the stallion, who glared, “You’ve given me a lot to think about today. I believe I will be able to address all your concerns at a speech at Town Hall tomorrow afternoon. So make sure every pony in town comes, okay?” she smirked as she said that last sentence.

The four rabble-rousers grumbled as they slowly made their way out of Mayor Mare’s office and into the less than perfect Spring day. Berry Punch saw the open door and, assuming it was closed, closed it and walked headlong into the wall. After a moment, where the Mayor could have sworn she saw actual stars around Berry’s head, she helped the likely concussed Berry to her feet and led her out the door, down the stairs, and into the street. Oddly, Berry seemed slightly more coherent after smacking her head.

“I guess I’ll see you tomorrow then,” Berry said as she walked away in her usual daze.

Minor crises postponed, the Mayor returned to her office – making sure to tell Raven not to allow any more visitors – and commenced her plan to engineer a major one.

Author's Note:

Hello, and welcome to my first story. Well, the first story I've published here, at any rate. This was originally intended to be a quick, silly one-shot, but it ended up a bit longer than I anticipated, so I've split it into seven small chapters. I hope you enjoy it.

Comments

[Ersatz_okapi]

I quite like the story idea. One grammar fix you need to make is that you need to remove the superfluous capitalization from the names of the pony races and the word "Royal."