Foundations of Equality

by stupidhand14

Chapter 5: First Day

The sun had only recently risen when Azure Moon woke up. Smiling, the mare stretched in her bed, willing herself to wake up. After a couple of tries, she was able to actually force herself to get out of bed and get ready for the day.

Her mother was already gone, already preparing the classroom, or whatever building she would be using that day for the classroom. Not really that many fillies or colts to teach, only a couple were there to learn before they would be forced to live with extended family to keep Equality in the village.

Sighing to herself, trying to get away from darker thoughts, Azure finished up with her morning routine and headed outside. Not many ponies were out at this time, most were still asleep. Before she could knock, Azure heard a soft thud behind her and a folding of wings. She turned to see Tempest Glide.

“Hey, Tempest,” Azure greeted. “How are---”

“What are you doing?” She demanded. Her eyes were wide open in shock, her mouth hanging open slightly.

“What do you mean? I’m going to see Double Diamond.” Azure thought for a few seconds. Her mane was in the proper style, so that couldn’t be it. It was doubtful she had anything sticking onto her, nor falling off her. She still had her coat, and there weren’t any holes in it.

While she was thinking, Tempest grabbed her forehoof and began to pull her towards her house. Azure tried to resist, but Tempest pulled with such urgency that she eventually stopped. After they were inside, Tempest locked the door.

“Is anypony else home?” Tempest moved to look in the kitchen, trying to find any supposed ponies that were hiding.

“No, it’s just you and me now.” Azure gave her friend a pointed look. “Why are you freaking out?”

“Look at your flank!” Azure did. On her flank was her Cutie Mark, sticking out like a scar. Azure’s eyes widened and her mouth fell open.

“Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘Oh.’” Tempest moved over and shook her friend. “You can’t leave with… that showing.”

“I have makeup to cover it,” Azure informed her, moving to grab the makeup and stencil.

“Why didn’t you use it, then?”

“I guess I forgot about it.” Azure applied the makeup with a touch more finesse than before.

“How does it feel?” Tempest asked, while Azure grabbed the equal mark stencil.

“How does what feel?” Azure’s Equal Sign was now perfectly visible, without any real error.

“Having your Cutie Mark,” she clarified. “Surely you feel at least a little different, right?”

Azure had to think about the answer she wanted to give. She could give her friend the truth, but would the truth harm her? Was it better to give a comforting lie? What would Double Diamond do? Choices make a pony who they were.

“Yes, it is different,” Azure admitted. “I can’t really describe it. The world seems… different. There is a sharper sense to everything, even the things that shouldn’t be as sharp.” Tempest seemed satisfied. “Anyway, now I’m late. You mind coming with me?”

“Of course.” The two walked back to Double Diamond’s house before Tempest grew curious. “Why are you going to the mayor’s house, again?”

“Today I start my first job,” Azure announced proudly. She stood straighter and walked with more bravado.

“First job, huh?” Tempest smiled at her friend’s pseudo courage. “Welcome to the work force, where you will spend the rest of your life.”

“Not if I can help it,” Azure mumbled under her breath. “Hopefully I’ll save up enough bits for it.”

“You will want to go through with it?” Tempest looked her friend dead in the eye. “You have an important job here now, and a big role to play, and you still want to go through with it?”

“I think it’d be for the best, and help me with my job,” Azure answered honestly. Well, half honestly. “Though I admit there are other advantages.”

“If we’re going to do it, then I need to get back to work. See ya.” Tempest flew off to the other side of the village where she could monitor the clouds in the sky. Azure smiled as she walked up to the door to Double Diamond’s house.

Azure was about to knock when she heard two voices from within. She shouldn’t listen in on Double Diamond’s conversations, right? But she was supposed to be there, according to her mom. Perhaps if she just listened a little she could determine whether or not barging in would be bad. Pressing her ear to the door, Azure strained her ears to listen.

“... you’re saying, and I agree, but why not tell us sooner?” Came one voice.

“Honestly, Double Diamond, we’ve known you for years, and you let us worry and struggle for nothing?” This voice was more feminine, with a touch more anger.

“I tried to do all I could to slow you from leaving,” Double Diamond said. “I tried doing all I could without giving away the secret.”

“Still, do you know how hard it was to say goodbye? Now we have to go back and tell everypony we’re staying.”

“We’re all friends here,” Double Diamond assured them.

“Well, keeping that secret wasn’t very friendly,” the first pony retorted. A few silent seconds passed. The silence was ended by the sound of a smack.

“That was uncalled for,” the feminine voice said. “I’m sorry, for him, he didn’t get much sleep the past few nights.”

“That’s alright, you’re forgiven. Anyways, was there anything you two needed?” Double Diamond asked to the other two. Taking that as her queue, Azure retracted her ear and knocked on the door. “One moment.”

Double Diamond opened the door, looking right at Azure with a questioning eyebrow.

“I hate to cut this short,” Double Diamond said, turning back to the couple in the room, “but it appears my time is required.” Bidding farewells, the two other ponies left the room. “Good morning, Azure.”

“Good morning.” Azure moved to the table and sat down. “I was told you wanted to talk to me…?”

“Yes, I did.” Double Diamond sat down across from her. “I wanted to talk to you about your new job.”

“Okay, what am I doing?”

“You are going to be my secretary.”

“That doesn’t sound a lot like the promise you made to me just two days ago,” Azure whined with a pointed hoof. “You said I would get to do fun things, like plan events.”

“I know, but you need experience.” Double Diamond paused, seeing if she would interrupt. SHe did not, so he carried on. “Acting as my secretary will give you the same authority, and you’ll be able to gain some experience with speaking and ordering, as well as controlling other ponies.”

Azure sat silently for a few seconds, mulling the idea over. It wasn’t a bad proposition, but there were some unclear points.

“What about getting paid?” She finally asked after several seconds.

“What do you mean?”

“How many bits per hour am I getting? I kinda need to start saving up bits soon, right?” Double DIamond sighed and placed a hoof on his nose, squeezing slightly.

“You’ll be getting paid 32 bits an hour.” Azure’s face lit up for a moment before falling right back down.

“32 bits? That’s it?” Her mom made 58 bits an hour, but she only got 32? How was that fair? Double Diamond probably made closer to 70, but she only got 32? Was it because of her age?

“Yes, I believe that is enough to cover any expenses or costs you have. If you need anymore, I may be able to secure funds for you, but I’ll need the reasoning.” Azure simply sighed, knowing there was no way around it.

“Shall I get started then?”

“Of course, follow me.” Double Diamond led her to the study, which had a small wooden desk and a stack of papers to one side. “Your first job will be taking care of these papers.”

“Alright, any specific order to organize or… anything?” Double Diamond simply smiled and looked her in the eyes.

“No, it’s all up to you to create your own system. I’ll be back at lunch. I hope you’ll be done by then.”

Azure got to work on the papers, trying multiple ways of sorting them. Her first idea was by subject matter, but that got too varied too quickly. There were hundreds of papers, each one needing to be read over multiple times. Forms made the whole process easier, but very few forms were used, especially since the old printing press had broken down a few years back.

Eventually, she scrapped that idea and moved on to dates, which proved much easier. Setting everything chronologically made the process simpler, since all she had to do was look at the dates. After a couple of hours, the papers were all organized and laid out in a comprehensive format, with each one in its proper place.

Good job Azure, you did it, she thought as she patted herself on the neck. Looking outside, she judged it was still about an hour until lunch, enough time for a quick nap. Azure lay down by the door and closed her eyes. In the next instant, she was being shaken by Double Diamond.

“What are you doing?” Double Diamond stopped shaking her.

“What do you mean?” Azure asked as she got up.

“You were asleep, in the study, after I had given you a job to do,” he replied very evenly. “Why were you asleep?”

“Oh, I finished the job already, and thought I would wait for you,” Azure told him. “I must have dozed off.”

“Well, it’s time for lunch. You have enough time to get lunch and be back. If you’re late, you’ll stay late.” Azure rushed out the door to get lunch. Double Diamond stayed behind and began to examine what she had accomplished.

Chronogical was the obvious choice for organizing these, but Azure had made a mistake. She only did one layer, and it was too obvious a pattern. Double Diamond was able to find the several papers he needed very quickly, but these papers were not what ponies would want to find. Letters to loved ones, secrets shared, confiscated notes from a class, and more. Shaking his head, Double Diamond looked through the rest of the work that Azure had done, critically analyzing it.

Azure, on the other hoof, rushed home to make a quick sandwich before heading off to find some of her friends. The first one she found was Golden Scale.

“Hey, Gold!” Azure greeted enthusiastically. “How are you?”

“Oh, hi, Azure,” Golden responded, taking a small step back. “I’m good, what about you?”

“Pretty well.” Azure looked at Golden in a confusion as the mare took a few more steps away. “Are you okay?”

“Of course, I just have somewhere I need to go.”

“Oh, don’t let me hold you back. Go on, I’ll talk to you later.” Golden Scale ran off very quickly, not waiting even a moment for reply. Shrugging off the strange experience, Azure went to talk to her other friends, River Channel and Tempest Glide. The two were hanging out near Tempest’s house, which was at the very edge of town.

“Are you still doing it?” River asked as she bit into her sandwich.

“Nothing has changed, we’re all still going to do it,” Azure assured her.

“We just need another… thousand bits, and we’ll have enough, according to Golden Scale,” Tempest reported.

“If we all give up something for a couple of weeks, we should have enough, right?” Azure looked back at Tempest, who was working the numbers in her head.

“Yeah, I think so,” she said without confidence. “I’ll have Golden recalculate it tonight, just to make sure.”

“Alright, just a bit more, and we’ll be able to do it.”

“This is going to be great!” exclaimed River. “Anyway, I gotta get back to work, before my boss misses me.”

After some small talk, Tempest spotted a small cloud trying to escape and flew to intercept it. Taking this as a sign, Azure returned to Double Diamond’s house. He was sitting at his desk, holding a small pile of papers from the study.

“So, what now?” Azure ask as she sat across from him.

“Now, I tell you what you did wrong,” he replied simply. “Let me show you these papers.” Each paper had personal information about each member of the town, including Tempest. It revealed their job, which house they owned, and any particular secret or failure that they were a part of.

“What did I do wrong?” Azure finally asked. “They were organized chronologically.”

“Yes, but do you know what these papers are? They aren’t meant to be filed.”

“What do you mean?”

“These papers are meant for your eyes only, to be memorized and destroyed or hidden. These contain information that no one else must ever find out, that was your task. You were supposed to find whichever papers you needed to find from these reports, not simply organize them.”

“Why didn’t you tell me to do that in the first place?”

“If I gave you all the answers, you wouldn’t learn. You need to learn through trial and error. You are going to replace Starlight, and me. You need to learn how to handle information that is given to you by other ponies. That stack of paper is what I get every month, sometimes with less information. If you’re going to replace me, you’ll need to learn how to find information from those sheets.”

“What possible information can I get from those papers other than general facts about the town?”

“Let me show you, then.” Double Diamond dug out the filed incident report for Tempest Glide’s cupcake robbery. “Looking at this, you have a name, what they did, and when or where they did it. You can find out a lot of what a pony does in their free time by reading this.”

“But it doesn’t prove anything about Tempest, it doesn’t show anything about her other than she did this once,” Azure argued.

“No, it shows more. Look here, it says that five cupcakes were taken. We know she didn’t eat five cupcakes in a matter of seconds, so one of two options. The first was that she would keep some for herself, while the second said she’d give some to a friend. After reading this report, I assumed the second and watched you when Tempest caught up. I’m sure that icing tasted delicious.” Azure sat in shock for a second, which Double Diamond took as a motion to continue.

“Furthermore, I have seen multiple reports for Tempest’s behavior during festivities where sweets are involved, and this provides me with a pattern. Now I know that, the next time we have sweets being made, she will likely try to take one or two.”

“I… that’s… that’s…” Azure was at a loss for words.

“Information is required if you wish to stay ahead of any opponents. A new stack of papers are upstairs now. You’re job is to go through them. You should know what to do now.” Azure nodded and moved to do what he said. Upstairs was, indeed, another stack of papers. Azure once again put them in chronological order, but then went through again and pulled out the papers that she thought were important.

Reports and bureaucracy were left behind. Instead, she grabbed the secret letters, incident reports, and one farm report which detailed poor material use in the southern fields, implying that structural stability would not last if water were to come in large amounts. Azure went through and combed for anymore information. This process took hours, but by the end of it, she had a small stack of papers that held some relevance and key information. Instead of waiting for Double Diamond, she went down to find him.

When she found him, he was making a small fire in his fireplace. For tinder were several papers that looked familiar. It dawned on her that he was burning the papers he had shown her earlier.

“What are you doing?” she asked in mild shock.

“Another important fact about information: the less ponies have access to it, the more valuable it becomes.” Double Diamond lit the fire and the two watched as the reports and files went up in smoke. “Sometimes, you need to get rid of harmful information, either as a favor or for your own benefit. Hopefully Tempest won’t hear of this gift.”

The two went upstairs and Double Diamond once again critically examined her work. After several minutes, he grabbed the farming report.

“Why did you pull this one out?”

“Well, I thought that if we ever needed to flood the area for any reason, we would know which places to pour the water in hopes to prevent soil erosion or destruction to such a degree. It also implies that no deep root plans can be grown there, and funds should be sent there to assess and repair the damage.”

“Now you’re thinking. As your first proposed policy, I will accept it. Somepony will be sent out tomorrow to check on the fields.” Double Diamond finished his examination of the papers Azure pulled out in silence. At the end, he gave her his final comments.

“You did better this time, though you missed some key sources such as this report from a concerned mother about her child not getting enough sleep. It may seem unimportant, but the question should be asked: What is the child doing that causes them to lose sleep? Now, it’s time. Did you memorize these reports?”

“No, I didn’t memorize them,” Azure admitted sheepishly, “not yet. I was waiting for you to check over them.”

“Memorize them and come downstairs. We will dispose of them.” Several minutes later, smoke plumed from the chimney, the smell of ink in the air. Nopony questioned it, nor Azure leaving the house silently afterwards.

After a pleasant dinner, Azure turned to her bed, wanting to forget her first day of work. True, she had learned, but the skills she learned weren’t what she was expecting. Why did she have to learn about manipulating information? Why did Double Diamond find this important? What did this have to do with replacing Starlight? Eventually, exhaustion wore her down and Azure fell asleep, questions still whirling in her mind.

Author's Note:

This chapter is dedicated to all the Equalists that were supporting the Equality Enquirer on April 1st, 2016.

Remember, Criticism is always welcome.

Comments

[Mix-up]

interesting chapter, we see that Azure moon is learning the basses of how Starlight thoughts and learn how to learn to influence ponies by learning on gathering as much information about them so that she can use it to influence them better in the future. This is done by doing on sight working and to try to commit every details that she can to memory alone. She is learning to pay attention to details to what is around her and use this information to her advantage when she can. I thought it was interesting to she that young ponies are forced to live with other past a certain age, I wander what is the reason for this.