Night Owls

by Rambling Writer

15 - A Second Opinion

For a unicorn with a checkbook cutie mark, Greenback did an awful lot of political analysis.

Before getting employed by the Royal Court, she was a stockbroker, and a fine one at that. She was good at looking at the state of Equestria and finding out what might happen where, particularly in regards to bits getting pushed around. She could look at this product doing well, that road being built, the location of this year’s Equestrian Games, and recommend her client to invest in this company, because its sales were about to climb for that reason.

It were these skills that got the attention of a royal political scientist, one who did her trading with her. The Court could use someone with your skills, she’d said. But you’d need to go back to school first. So Greenback had done some thinking and, a few years of political-science-majoring and high marks later, gotten a job in the Court. She wasn’t quite as good at analyzing as stockbroking (her cutie mark wasn’t a checkbook for nothing), but fairly close. She did well and liked her job, climbing through the ranks.

By the time she hit her personal limit, she wasn’t too far from the top, but didn’t really feel like she was fitting in. Maybe she was intruding on a close-knit group, maybe she was violating some unspoken rule nopony told her about, maybe it was just because her special talent was in finances instead of politics. Whatever. Nopony was hostile, she just didn’t really interact with anypony she worked with unless it had something to do with work. But that was fine by her; Greenback was the introverted type, anyway, perfectly fine on her own.

There was one pony she talked with frequently on non-business matters, though, an excitable young pegasus named Whistler. Not much more than a janitor or all-purpose, interdepartmental lackey (it depended on the situation), Whistler seemed to have a mind too big for her head, with multiple aspects of her personality jockeying for position. Somehow, this resulted in her telling crazy conspiracy theories to anypony who’d listen, theories sometimes so off-the-wall that Greenback genuinely wondered if Whistler herself took them seriously. Since conspiracy theories weren’t exactly welcome among political scientists, most ponies just ignored her. But Greenback didn’t mind, and had said that she’d be fine listening to whatever she had to say.

“So, hey,” said Whistler, sliding into the empty bench on the other side of Greenback’s lunch break table, “you said a few days back you wanted to hear how Nightmare Moon’s banishment was faked?”

Greenback flipflopped between enjoying that decision and regretting it dearly. Fortunately, today looked like it was the former. “Sure.”

“Right, okay, so, you know how Discord, Tirek, and Sombra all happened right after one another a thousand years ago?” Whistler talked fast and liked to flap her wings as she spoke.

“A thousand’s a number used for roundness,” said Greenback through a mouthful of homemade hayburger. “It happening ‘one thousand eighty-three years ago’ or ‘nine hundred and seventeen years ago’ or whatever the exact number was doesn’t sound as nice. They weren’t as close together as each of them happening ‘a thousand years ago’ makes them sound.”

“Eh, close enough. Anyways, so, they all happen close together. So now Celestia and Luna are looking kinda incompetent. That’s a lotta bad stuff happening, you know? So one or the other of them comes up with a plan, see? Dunno which one, but ten to one says it was Luna. Anyway, so, yeah, the plan goes like this: one of them rebels against the other, who then seals the first away, even though it was-” Whistler melodramatically put a hoof over her heart. “-oh! so tragic for them. So now the remaining Princess not only looks more powerful, ‘cause they banished their supposed equal and all, but they also make it clear that they’re willing to do what has to be done for Equestria. So, boom-de-yada: they consolidate the power they already have and make the bad guys less likely to attack them, ‘cause they’ll be attacked back if they do, and you bet your rump that counterattack won’t be proportionate. So after a certain amount of time, the other gets unsealed, conveniently redeemed, and everything’s all hunky-dory again, only now the Princesses have even more power, ‘cause they’re both out. Boom.” Whistler grinned. “Nice, ain’t it?”

“Hmm.” Greenback chewed on her hayburger, attempting to look contemplative. When that didn’t work, she swallowed. “So what made you think this?”

“Well, it’s just too… too nice, if you look at it,” said Whistler, waving her hooves. “Too neat. So, first of all, how come Celestia could use the Elements of Harmony alone when she also needed Luna to use them before? And we needed six ponies to use them seventy years ago. So not only that, but how come Celestia couldn’t save Luna at first in spite of her experience, but when a group of random country ponies who don’t know what they’re doing get their hooves on Elements, they save Luna on the first try?”

“Maybe there’s something automatic or instinctive about it, kind of like how friendships just happen.”

“Eh, doubt it. So, number two: how long did it take Nightmare Moon to ‘escape’? A thousand years. To the day.” Whistler banged a hoof on the tabletop. “Yes, I checked the dates. Way too round a number. So when did Celestia banish Luna? When she refused to lower the moon to make room for the sun, so right before dawn. The Summer Sun Celebration was established a year later on the solstice. Same day of the year, so Luna first went psycho bonkers crazy on the solstice. So when did we first see that Nightmare Moon was out? When Celestia didn’t appear to raise the sun because she’d been kidnapped by Nightmare Moon, so right after ‘dawn’ during the Summer Sun Celebration — once again, solstice. So I wouldn’t be surprised if her time-out lasted a thousand years, and not a second more or less. Magic just doesn’t get that exact.”

“Said the pegasus.” Greenback released a small spark from her horn to make a point. “You can get pretty exact with magic, and I wouldn’t be surprised if alicorns can do it more.”

“So, yeah, maybe, sure, I know that, but a thousand years? Ha ha, yeah, no.” Whistler snorted, blowing a particularly long lock of hair from her eyes.

“And it wasn’t just Celestia’s magic failing, it-”

“Yeah, yeah, I know, ‘the stars will aid in her escape’. So what does that mean? So are stars intelligent? So can they serve as a power source to increase her own magic? So why didn’t she use them earlier? And, still: a thousand years exactly. Too round. Totally planned.”

“And the prophecy?”

“Complete bunk. Celestia made it up so she could justify Nightmare Moon breaking out without undermining her own power. You’ll note that Predictions and Prophecies was published by the Canterlot Royal Press.”

“Hmm.” Greenback still doubted the truth of the whole thing, but it was making more sense than Whistler’s usual theories.

“So, third: the Summer Sun Celebration itself.” Whistler put on a remarkably good impersonation of Celestia. “So, my little ponies, because my beloved sister and co-ruler went and lost her marbles a year ago, and I was forced to banish her to save the world, I’m going to throw a great big party to commemorate the traumatic event! Hooray!” She raised an eyebrow. “Seriously? So you had to do something incredibly heartbreaking, and you set up an annual holiday for it? Yeah, no. Something’s up.”

“Hmm.” Greenback took a sip of water. “All right then. But Luna would’ve been alone for a millennium, trapped with the knowledge that she volunteered to act as a scapegoat for an underhoofed plot to increase her and her sister’s perceived strength. So how come the guilt and isolation didn’t drive her mad?”

Whistler laughed a little. “C’mon, think about it a bit. So, it was faked, right? So as long as no one recognized Luna, she could just interact with anypony however she liked. She was never in the moon to begin with, so that’s why she’s not psycho bonkers crazy. So they faked her appearance in the moon, too, and took it away when it was done.”

“I don’t think the Princesses can shapeshift.”

“Sure they can. So, even if Luna was banished, there’ve been a few Nightmare Nights where she’s turned into Nightmare Moon. I’ve seen it myself. So it’s probably not as complete as the changelings, but she can definitely tweak her appearance.”

“Hmm.” Greenback was somewhat dismayed to note that, when talking with Whistler, that was always the most common sentence she said.

“So not only that,” continued Whistler, “but if Nightmare Moon had been stuck in the moon for a thousand years, she would’ve gone psycho bonkers crazy, too. I mean, moreso than a pony trying to bring about eternal night already was. But the Elements supposedly acted as instant therapy for Luna — wielded, need I remind you, by a bunch of random country ponies.”

Greenback swallowed her most recent mouthful. “Fine. But why go for a thousand years? That’d be an awfully long time for Luna to live in secret. Why not a hundred? Or ten? Or fifty?”

Whistler put up a hoof dramatically, opened her mouth, and froze. She frowned and tapped her chin. “Alright,” she muttered. “So there’s not a whole lot of reason to go for a whole millennium. Dunno.” She shrugged. “Menace? Looks properly intimidating on paper. ‘A thousand’ has some oomph that ‘a hundred’ doesn’t, but it’s still long. So… oh, maybe it’s just there to look convincing.”

“What do you mean?”

“So you don’t do things by halves. So when you kick someone out for a thousand years, you know they’re serious. It’s the kind of thing that just isn’t faked because… well, really? Nopony has that kind of patience.” Whistler smiled knowingly. “Unless you’re an immortal alicorn for whom a thousand years is just a drop in the bucket.”

“Hmm.”

“So yeah. Luna didn’t really go to the moon, it was all just misdirection. So it was done so Celestia and Luna could gather more power.” Whistler smiled.

“Hmm.” Greenback swallowed the last of her sandwich and glanced at a clock. “Listen, lunch break’s almost over, I gotta get back to work. Nice talking with you.” It actually was. Whistler was nothing if not entertaining.

“Uh-huh. Yeah. See you tomorrow.” Whistler zipped away.

Tossing her trash into a trash can, Greenback headed back to her office, thinking of her work. The griffon military was slightly more active than usual. The problem was finding out if it was anything to be worried about. The Griffon Kingdom was a bit more militaristic than Equestria, had been ever since the Griffonstone Renaissance had petered out almost thirty years ago, but the two had never risked going to war. That might change, and it was her job to find out. Greenback felt confident she could do it, as long as she had no distractions.

She pushed open the door to her office to find Luna waiting patiently inside.

“Um…” Greenback gulped. “Hello, Your Majesty.” She dropped into a bow. What’d I do? WHAT’D I DO?

“Do not be worried,” Luna said as Greenback stood back up. “I simply have a special assignment for you.” The door closed behind Greenback and Luna gestured towards Greenback’s chair. “Please. Take a seat.”

Greenback nervously sat down. What was Luna doing here? What was Luna, not Celestia, doing here? She’d never met the Princesses in person. She got her assignments from an in-between. So now, having one in her office, Greenback was almost sweating.

Luna noticed. “Please, calm yourself. This has nothing to do with you personally. I simply have an… issue I wish to look into. I…” Luna flicked her ears and her voice got slightly quieter. “I do not think my sister is in her right mind.”

That might’ve been even worse. Celestia potentially going gaga was not something Greenback wanted to think about. But if Luna thought so, that wasn’t a good sign. Greenback swallowed. “How so, Your Highness?”

“Ever since the attempt on her life,” said Luna, “her behavior has been erratic, seemingly determined to stymie all examination of those responsible. I cannot imagine the reason why, but to all appearances, she is trying to hide something. If reasonably possible, I would like you to dig into her actions over the past week and see if my fears are at all founded.”

Um, okay. Wow. This… this was big. Did digging up dirt on one of the diarchs count as treason if the other diarch was the one who ordered it?

“However, given the nature of this assignment,” continued Luna, “I’m afraid that you cannot do it on normal time. If my suspicions are right, and if Celestia were to find out about you…” She was silent for a moment. “Your work must be done in private. Try to leave as small a paper trail as possible. Based on your qualifications, I think you are the best mare for this particular job.” (Greenback was flattered, at least.) “You can turn the job down, if you so desire, and I shall find someone else to work with. But I hope this is within your abilities.” She was holding it back quite well, but Luna was looking a bit desperate.

Greenback cocked her head, thinking quickly. Naturally, it’d all depend on what she found, but if it went the way she thought it would go- “Yeah. I think I can do that.”

“Thank you,” Luna said with a sigh of relief. “I understand if you cannot find anything, but I hope that is not the case. Good day.”

She teleported out of the room. She must’ve really been working on keeping this secret.

Greenback slumped down in her chair, already feeling beat. She’d never done something like this before. Previously, she’d always been given some facts and told to find something out about them. Finding the facts themselves had never been her aim. She’d never actually investigated; that was what interns were for. And with Luna’s plea for secrecy, she couldn’t exactly bring them in. This could be tricky.

Then the gears started shifting in her head, and Greenback sat back up. But this wasn’t all that different from stockbroking, right? If you tilted your head, squinted a little, and looked through a foggy mirror. She’d be the one finding out facts then. Now, she just had a wider net she had to trawl through. This could be tricky, but it was definitely doable.

She could do this.

So, where to start? That was easy: follow the money. Everybody knew that money talked, Greenback especially so. If you did something — anything — money was involved. And with an entire country at her hooftips, Celestia would be working with the country’s money. Greenback would start at the treasury.

Later. Right now, she had her own job to do.

---

When you were a political analyst for the Royal Court, treasurers didn’t question you much when you said you needed this or that. It helped that, since she was a former stockbroker, she’d often be the one to look into financial matters and went there a lot as part of her current job. Everypony recognized her and authorized her rather large request without much thought. (Which was probably violating some protocol, but oh well.)

Financial matters were complicated things, but Greenback knew how to dissect them. In particular, as part of keeping track of the budget, the court had daily papers showing its expenses. For internal use only, but Greenback was internal. She walked away from the treasury with several pounds of papers and tables and charts and what have you. Everything from the past week. It’d take a while to look through, but she had time.

Greenback’s house was a bit on the small side, but she was fine with that. She didn’t need much company, anyway. Besides, what really made this house special to her was the room in the back: a good-sized study with plenty of space for bookshelves, tables, filing cabinets, and whatever else she’d need to work. She had a bit of everything, including plenty of maps of Equestria and the surrounding lands. When she needed to visualize something, she’d often break out the maps and draw on them with a marker. The study wasn’t anything particularly amazing, as far as studies went, but Greenback had worked from there long enough that it felt like her home within home.

With no big political developments recently, the study was currently in its “clean” state, with the floor visible. In all likelihood, that would soon change. Greenback plonked her mass of paperwork on her desk and lit a lamp to work by. This shouldn’t be too hard, she thought, pulling out the first set of papers. There probably aren’t even any diff-

-holyschlamolythat’salottagems.

Greenback blinked, shook her head a few times to clear it just in case, and looked at the tables again. She was seeing it right: the amount of gems in the treasury had skyrocketed, almost tripling in the past few days. But before that, everything regarding gems was constant.

Hmm.

Well. At least Luna probably had a point about Celestia being out of whack.

So, first things first: what the hay could Celestia need with all those gems? Greenback tapped her hoof on the table a few times, thinking, before pulling out another paper, also treasury-related. And… no, gem expenditure hadn’t increased significantly since… ever, really. Gems weren’t exactly difficult to find, if you knew where to look, and so weren’t especially valuable (except to dragons, who somehow ate the darn things). Not that Greenback was expecting anything here; it’d be too easy. As she was thinking this, she used her magic to multitask, writing down her thoughts on a blank sheet of paper. Always good to keep notes handy.

Stockpiling, maybe? Hmm. ...Possible, but unlikely. Gems weren’t projected to run out anytime soon, and working the miners faster (assuming that’s where the gems were coming from, but first things first) would only make them run out faster. They might be used as a source of extra bits, but putting this many into circulation would only cause their value to plummet, and then some. The treasury had plenty to put a select few here and there out when need be, but that was only a semi-last resort.

And it wasn’t like Celestia didn’t know this; she’d kept admirable control over the treasury for a loooooooong time. By now, gems were most often given away as shiny political gifts. She definitely wasn’t the kind to throw around gems willy-nilly like this.

But what practical purpose could all those gems serve? Fashion, sure, but there wasn’t a “Fashion Designer for the Royal Treasury” position, least of all one who was obsessed with sparkly stuff. (At least not as far as Greenback knew.) And there just wasn’t a whole lot else you did with gems.

Hmm.

Thinking she missed something, Greenback looked back at the report and-

Hold on.

Hold on hold on wait waitaminute.

She’d just assumed the gems were high-quality ones, but looking again, at lot of them were average or mediocre. Not really any rhyme or reason to their assortment, either. Random amounts of each type every day they came in. It was like Celestia was hoarding gems just for the sake of hoarding gems.

Well, if she’s been replaced by a shapeshifting dragon, that’ll make my final report to Luna interesting.

Or maybe what Celestia wanted wasn’t the gems themselves, but something involved in getting them. Just because you dug up a lot of dirt to lay a pipe didn’t mean you wanted that dirt. But what? What would require excavating that many gems?

And, more importantly, why was she keeping them? If the gems were just in the way, they’d be discarded, left around for someone else to find. But, no, Celestia was holding onto the gems. Like the gems themselves were important.

Or, Greenback realized in a flash, their lack elsewhere. Celestia might not be excavating gems, but stealing them. Or “expropriating” them, if she was using eminent domain or some other law. But who could possibly be missing that many gems? She’d practically have to go around every single family in Equestria to get all that. And then some.

Which left another question: why? Assuming Celestia was taking them from their rightful owners, what purpose would that serve? That’d only get their owners angry. Or would it? With gems as easy to get as they were, the owners might just be annoyed, since it wouldn’t take that long to replace them. Unless they wanted the gems taken off their hands for whatever reason. But then why did they still have them, when they could just dump them in the trash or something?

Greenback rubbed her eyes and glanced at the clock. Late. She needed to get to bed. Maybe she could get up early tomorrow to get some more work done on this before she headed in for her “actual” job; it all depended on how she felt. She looked down at her notes thus far:

LOTS of gem acq.
- Why?
- Spend
- Gifts? bad qlty
- Stckpl?
- Neg space?
- Whr from?
- Who?
- How? Theft/em dom?

Not much, but she had a place to start with for tomorrow: where were they coming from? So, get a look at treasury shipping manifests, maybe, she told herself. She arranged her papers a little and blew out the lamp.

Comments

[MaskofLimbo]

The name "Night Owls" made me thing it was a story about Vanossgaming's super sero "Night Owl"... but now I remember he renamed him to Bat-owl.
i.ytimg.com/vi/nzZrBWLaxfg/maxresdefault.jpg

Yeah, not a important commentary here

[Erhannis]

Hmm - been about five years. If you're pretty sure you'll never finish the story, perhaps you could post a short (spoilered) synopsis of the remainder of the story? Like, who was behind everything and to what end, and so forth.

Also, I liked the story, but most everyone in it was terminally stupid. Ignoring clues and bad feelings and dismissing reasonable fears as "paranoia"...repeatedly. Calling each other by name when infiltrating a castle. Drawing everything but the obvious conclusions. I was pretty convinced some of those people were traitors, because they couldn't possibly be that blind unless they were trying. Still not convinced they all AREN'T traitors, really. Aside from the frustrating terminal stupidity, though, I liked it.