Commerce Culture
"Brother of mine, I have a presentiment that this benighted burg will be a veritable goldmine!" Flim said as he surveyed the amazing variety of creatures crowding the main square of the town.
"Indeed, my favorite sibling!" replied Flam. "This nexus of ne'er-do-wells is ripe for the plucking, and not a law or regulation in sight to stop us! What a splendid venue! Shall we?"
"Indeed, we shall!" answered Flim, throwing a lever on the side of the boxy cart that the two of them had laboriously pulled through the winding and sometimes narrow streets, all the way from the airship docks.
The two gangly stallions stood back and let the clanking and wheezing mechanism do its work. Quite a crowd had gathered before the cleverly designed vehicle had completely finished unfolding into an outlandish market stall, complete with garishly painted banners.
Flam climbed up onto a small platform that had slid out of the side of the cart. It put him above head level for most of the audience. "Welcome, welcome, my dear ponies… and griffins, and zebras, and hippogriffs and… whatever it is that you are, good sir or madam! This is your lucky day!" He produced a collapsible pointer from the pocket of his striped vest, and tapped out the words on the banner as he spoke them.
"The Double F Miracle Elixir! Guaranteed to put the vim and vigor of an alicorn into even the most pathetic of creatures, and now available to the public at a ridiculously low, low price!"
Flam continued his spiel, ascending to ever new heights of hyperbole, despite the growing suspicion that something wasn't quite right. The crowd was paying eager attention to him, true, but it wasn't the sort of desperately hopeful anticipation that he was used to stirring up. It was almost as if they were enjoying his performance rather than his promises.
A quick, sidelong glance at his brother confirmed his fears. Flim was staring out at the assembled creatures with an expression of obvious puzzlement. Flam quashed a worried grimace and turned his full attention back to the crowd; there was nothing to do but carry on.
When he came to the end of his carefully prepared speech, Flam swept a grand gesture at the counter, now laden with patent medicine bottles, and announced, "Only one bit per bottle or the equivalent in local currency. Half off for the first ten customers!"
That discount offer hadn't been planned, but as the suckers weren't eagerly pressing up to the counter as expected, he thought that some extra encouragement was warranted. As the useless glop they were selling only cost them a bit for fifty bottles, the limited markdown would hardly scratch their profits.
There was applause. There wasn't supposed to be applause. There was supposed to be a rush to dump lots of lovely bits into the cart's built-in cash box. But the only coins that immediately presented themselves were several odd-looking foreign things of obviously base metal, carelessly tossed onto the platform at Flam's hooves as if he were some sort of lowly street performer. Of the large mass of creatures that had approached at the clarion call of Flam's ineluctable sales pitch, most turned away and went about their business.
"I can't believe it," Flim said to himself under his breath.
"What's that, mister?" asked a somewhat squeaky voice from the other side of the counter.
Flim leaned over the counter to find a young griffin peering up at him. He wasn't very good at judging the age of non-ponies, but it was clear she wasn't an adult. Well, no matter; a customer was a customer. "Nothing, nothing! So, you'd like some of the wondrous Double F elixir? I would advise you to stock up! Makes a great Hearthswarming gift! How many will you take?"
The young griffin reached up and took one of the bottles from the counter. She examined it closely, rotating it so that she could examine every part of the colorful label.
"There's no dosage information," she observed in a disquietingly un-childlike manner.
"Well, that's because the more you take, the better it works!" replied Flim with hearty good cheer, since there was nothing in the elixir that could be considered an "active" ingredient besides a little sugar. Putting anything into their potions that had any effect whatsoever was a mistake the brothers were eager not to repeat.
"This has been tested on griffins, right?" the fluffy little peeper persisted. "We can react differently to drugs than ponies, you know."
Flim had faced tougher customers than her and was fully prepared. "Why, my little chickadee! I have thousands of testimonials from satisfied customers as to the efficacy of our product! Many of whom are not only griffins, but celebrity griffins! Griswold, first griffin in the Royal Equestrian Guards, has personally—" But before Flim could locate the forged letter of recommendation in the cart's paperwork cubby, the cute little vulture interrupted him.
"Anecdotal evidence," she said with the gravity of a judge pronouncing a guilty verdict. "I mean a real, scientific study. A proper one! Not one of those propaganda jobs out of Quaggastan. You show me your sample size and methodology and I'll tell you whether or not I believe you."
Flim realized he was gaping, but he couldn't help himself.
"Where are you from, young lady?" asked Flam, who had walked around the cart to stand at his brother's side. "Some... local academy, perhaps?"
For the briefest moment, Flim and Flam nearly panicked as they heard an earthquake start up behind the young griffin. When they looked up, though, all they saw was a remarkably large specimen of the water buffalo tribe. He was chuckling. "Her Majesty's public schools are pretty good, see? Don't need no fancy academies," he said.
The griffin chick turned and chirped out a cheery, "Hi daddy!"
"Daddy?" Flim said quietly out of the corner of his mouth to his brother.
"I think I'd rather not know," Flam replied in the same fashion.
"Hey, Little Bit!" the buffalo replied, scooping up the young griffin with a hoof and placing her on his neck, just behind his head, where she could rest her beak between the bases of his horns. "You wanna go get ice cream?"
"Yeah!" She bounced happily on her perch. "I don't want any of this dumb stuff. I think these guys are crooks."
"Lotsa people are, Little Bit, see?" her father replied.
"Yeah, but they're not usually so obvious about it!"
Flim and Flam were left sputtering in indignation as the odd pair headed for an ice cream cart across the plaza.
Their next "customer" was a pegasus who demanded to know about possible side effects and drug interactions of their elixir. He left unsatisfied and empty-hoofed.
After that was a zebra mare who was very persistent in asking for a sample. When the brothers finally, grudgingly agreed, she scooped up two bottles and walked off, throwing a cheery "This will be ample. Thanks for the sample!" over her shoulder as she trotted away.
While they were staring glumly after her, a hippogriff asked, with all apparent sincerity, if the potion was gluten-free, but cracked up before he could get an answer.
The last creature to approach them was a nondescript earth pony mare.
Flam wearily shook his head. "Unless you're looking to buy—"
"Oh, I am!" she told him.
He brightened up at that. "Ah, well welcome then, madam! How many bottles would you like?"
She smiled at him. "Oh, you've got the wrong idea. I don't want any of your snake-oil. How much for the cart?"
Flam slowly turned to face his brother, whom he found was wearing the exact same expression of disgust.
"Brother of mine," he said wearily, "I hate this place."
= = =
=
They should count their blessings that they got out of town with their hides intact.
Thanks to Jordanis for his excellent sense of literary rhythm. Oh and all that editing stuff, too!
An unofficial addendum to the official map:
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My first thought: Oh, dear. It's Flam and Flim. Those poor sods are either going to be immediately recognised for hucksters or get themselves in some life threatening trouble and there will be no in between.
Oh hey, a sequel.
Not every town is Ponyville, boys
It’s not a proper Flim Flam brother’s story if they don’t have a potentially lucrative legitimate business opportunity staring them in the face that their impatience and greed blinds them to.
If that cart’s fancy mechanisms still function after the beating it must have taken on the scarce rough roads all the way from Equestria it’s a truly impressive piece of engineering. I imagine there are a half dozen or more profitable patents in it that they’re never going to think to register.
Eyyyyyyy.
Something to look forward to when I finish my reread.
Which got delayed by Norris' Synthetic Sunlight story...
~Skeeter The Lurker
Oh man, this was great! I'm excited to spend some more time in this wonderful world you've created.
Funny! Would that the real world could be so rational about similar things. If only, if only…
Are we ever going to see a story featuring Cadance to complete what I’m calling, “The Alicorn Assemblage?” I’d call it, “The Alicorn Quintet,” except that doesn’t alliterate the way some of the titles of the individual stories do.
And here, class, we have a specimen of free market capitalism actually working as intended. It begins and ends with an educated customer with high standards!
HAHhahaHAHAAAhahah.........
That was good.
Why certainly! This is actually a triple blindᵃ phase four study being conducted by the Equestria Bureau of Departments. We conduct four test phases with our products, that is over 130% more tests than our competitors. I can personally guarantee with a sworn affidavit, that you will experience no effects whatsoever with our elixir!
ᵃ Triple blind: The subject has no knowledge of which test group they are in, the scientists have no knowledge of which test they are administering, and the parent company disavows all knowledge of any tests.
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Quadruple blind: Nobody knows anything.
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The secret ingredient that makes it work is alicorns!
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The Cadence Conundrum may happen someday... at this point I wouldn't rule anything out.
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CadAnce
Well, you've got plenty of potential material for the fifth and sixth novel-length entries in the
increasingly inaccurately named Hitchhiker's TrilogyAlicorn Mystery series that you can start working on as soon as someone invents the 72-hour day.Anyway, interesting start to this anthology. Twilight would be very proud of her subjects.
Where do I get my immigration paperwork?
The denizens of TwilightTown, as an experiment in limited government with good schools, are just not naive and gullible for the Brothers Flim & Flam.
It is nice to read more of your stories. I wish that I could write things people would want to read.
On a sadder note, I noticed a typo:
Should be:
In less than a month, on 12,020-09-21 HE (Human Era), I shall return to work. I do not recommend cars hitting one.
Bloody hell, it really is Twilight Town. The essence of Twilight Sparkle is engraved onto the inhabitants' very souls
I was expecting the Cadence Conundrum, but this is even better. I always thought it was a shame we only got glimpses of Twilight Down in Skyla.
Also, typo: "odd-looking forign things "
Funny to see this come out literally right after I finish The Twilight Enigma. I'll save it for after The Skyla Pseudonym!
Awesome! Carry on!
Remember, if there are no laws to stop you, there are also no laws to protect you
There's a story waiting to be told.
Ah yes, the natural enemy of any con artist: The well-informed consumer. I'm sure Twilight will be delighted to hear of this little misadventure of the citizenry ever deems it worthy of her attention.
Looking forward to seeing what other little moments of Twilight Town you share with us.
Heeee. Poor Flim and Flam.
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Oh yeah, that's the way to go. Have you read On the Rocks? That should be next.
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Wise pony is wise.
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Typoes fix'd, thanks!
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> "Wise pony is wise."This is true because it is a tautology.
You are welcome.
1 of the things I like about TwilightTown is that it is pragmatic —— ¡not dogmatic!:
We have become ideologically dogmatic. The thing is that the world is too complicated for simple ideology. I imagine that, economically, TwilightTown is free-market, allows unions, and uses a counter-cyclic monetary policy.
It probably has free education, but contracts to private entities for educating the children, which has to meet governmental standards.
It probably has single-payer healthcare but contracts out the delivery to private Doctrices and Doctors. running clinics and a private organization running the local hospital.
In our country, the politicians offer us a choice of either the governments running everything, which history has shown us that it cannot, or running nothing, which means that the poor are screwed.
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Not yet, but it's next up on the list before Skyla. Hoping to get to On the Rocks this week then hopefully start Skyla Friday or Saturday.
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Enjoy!