Fast Ponies, Faster Fingers

by TheDriderPony

The Fine's Line [Comedy] [Meme] [Celestia] [Luna]

“What a wonderful idea this was sister! To walk amongst the lower classes and observe their lives.”

“Citizens, Luna. Not lower class. We’ve been over this.” Celestia sighed in exasperation. These little outings were supposed to help her sister adjust and learn how to properly respond to modern social situations. Considering that these were their third disguises this afternoon, it had not been going smoothly.

That aside, the day was perfect for a trot through the city. The sun was shining, the birds were singing, and an extraordinarily long line wound its way through a busy plaza.

“How queer,” Luna noted before turning to her sister. “Is this normal?”

“No. No, it is not. Excuse me sir,” Celestia tapped a stallion on the shoulder. “What is this line for?”

“Emotions,” he replied without a flicker of such. “Haven’t you heard? Have to buy them now.”

“What?”

“Prithee?”

He nodded towards the front of the line where a small stall had been erected. “Couple stallions managed to trademark emotions. Now everypony’s got to either buy them from them, or pay a hefty fine.”

The sisters turned towards each other. “Is this a mallet-worthy problem?”

Celestia grunted. “No, this is not the situation for your war-hammer. But it is worth looking into.”

With a brief fabrication of technically fake (but from a certain standpoint, arguably real) royal papers, they quickly moved to the front of the line. Behind the stall sat two similar-looking stallion, one with glasses and one without, with a stack of papers between them.

Celestia wasted no time cutting to the chase. “What’s this I hear about somepony trademarking emotions?”

One of the pair smiled plasticly. “That’s right. Hard Fine’s the name and this is my brother, Stiff Fine.”

StifF nodded stiffly.

“One cannot claim ownership of an emotion,” Luna said. “That makes no sense.”

“Oh but it does! And we did.” Hard Fine sat up, oddly eager to explain. “You see our mutual brother, Dam, runs a construction business that we’re partial owners of. Recently, we took over a paint manufacturer known for its colorfully named pigments. Happiness, Sorrow, Angst, and the like. Since Stiff and I are lawyers, he had us look over the fine print and we found it profitably ambiguous. And after a quick refiling, here we are now: proud owners of the rights to every emotion and reaction in Equestria.”

“That’s outrageous! The law was never meant to be interpreted that way!” Luna scolded.

“Anger,” said Stiff. “Five bits.”

“What?”

“Confusion. Two bits.”

“This- This is ridiculous!”

“Confused anger. Ten bits.”

“Why does that cost more?!”

As amusing as Celestia found this exchange, she concluded that it was probably time to intervene. “While I’m sure you two had only the noblest of intentions,” An obvious lie, but dealing with nobles coached one to handle conversations in a particular way. “I would highly recommend ceasing operations before somepony with authority catches wind of this. I feel that certain ponies, the Princesses in particular, might not look upon your actions favorably.”

“Condescension. Thirty bits.”

Hard Fine smirked. “I’d like to see them try. Those stuck-up princesses can’t do a thing. Not that that fat-flanked sun-wielder could if she wanted to. Her or the other one. We’ve got the law on our sides.”

An oppressive atmosphere suddenly emerged between the two parties. For some reason, Hard and Stiff broke out in a cold sweat, as though they were facing down a snarling predator.

“Luna…” Celestia said coldly (for twelve bits), “This just became a mallet problem.”

Had the swindler's trademark bore any actual weight, the gleeful and vindictive grin on the Lunar princess’s face would have surely bankrupted the Royal Treasury. She leaned in, so close that her muzzle pushed pressed up against Hard’s.

“Guess what, you clever little colts?”

They both gulped audibly, too terrified to answer.

“We art the Law!”

Author's Note:

Original Prompt: The fine line
Original Contest Date: October 19th, 2019
First Place

Comments

[True Edge]

[FanOfMostEverything]

Aside from Luna using a second-person singular pronoun, fantastic stuff.

Also, these two should be glad they didn't do this in the Sparklian Era. Naughty colts get put in the Pink Box.