Apropos of the Sinners

by SpitFlame

Introduction – Chapter III – Nova Steel

Not soon after Cluster Tale had left (which is to say about three or so years afterwards), Nova Steel also bid his farewell to his caretaker, Flash Stream; and one year after this Flash Stream, like I said, met his untimely demise. The funeral was taken care of by his sisters, though the brothers never did find the time to show up—a fact which both equally regretted. A combination of interpersonal dedications and financial problems impaired their travel times, or so they claimed.

While Nova Steel did not finish his studies—not so much out of stupidity but sheer laziness and indignation—at age thirteen he did get into a military school in Canterlot. He completed an expedition, was promoted, got into a row with a noble on the street while drunk, had his ranks degraded, and was promoted again some years later. He was known to waste money every single day, without fail.

As is the case with such family connections, Bronze Pocket owed a certain sum to each and every one of his children. While Cluster Tale held on to this supposed promissory note, and we shall get to Airglow Sky shortly, Nova Steel all too readily consumed everything that was given to him, and more. He met with his father for the first real time after his first promotion, when he came to his house in Ponyville on purpose to settle with him about his property rights. It seemed, out of the three siblings, that Nova Steel was the only one who grew up in the conviction that he, at any rate, would be his father’s heir, that is, inherit his property and the like.

It also seemed, again out of the three, that Nova Steel mostly detested his father; he stayed a very short time with him, signed a convoluted contract regarding his family financial rights (without reading it), and left quickly, as soon as he managed to obtain a certain sum owed to him, albeit a relatively small one. Bronze Pocket, however, managed to keep secret the true value of the annual net income of his estate, thus managing to instil a false and inflated image of two things: how much his son was owed, and at what rate could he receive the money.

However, I’m (again) starting to get ahead of myself, and find it that I had better attempt to search for some general sense in this general senselessness. For now let us say that Nova Steel dug himself into a situation which involved his father fobbing off small sums to him, until many more years afterwards, when Nova Steel ran out of patience and visited his father for a second time, to borrow the remaining sum of the money owed to him, only to find out that he had missed the window of time necessary to collect the rest, as much as five thousands bits. To make matters worse, it read in the very contract he signed those years ago that an extremely specific due date was set up to mediate the income owed, and should he fail to meet Bronze Pocket before then, all the value of his property in cash would by extension be transferred to his father. In other words: Nova Steel was—legally—not owed a single bit anymore.

This was all predicated by design, of course. Bronze Pocket was very pleased with himself. Nova Steel was stunned, suspected a lie or a trick, was almost beside himself, read the contract carefully, tore it up, and, as it were, lost all reason. He needed that remaining sum no matter the cost. This very circumstance led to the catastrophe: Nova Steel’s third and present return to Ponyville. He was twenty-five at the moment.