Princess Diaries

by emstar

Job One 1.11

Applejack and Rarity seemed to take my statements in stride. Rarity raised her eyebrows and gave me a look.

“Well,” Rarity said, “that’s certainly intriguing.” She raised her hoof. “Do go on then, dear detective.”

Rarity put a strange emphasis on the word detective, as if she was amused, or maybe just surprised. I cringed mentally at the appellation. Hopefully she wouldn’t keep calling me that constantly, or something.

(It was also technically incorrect. A detective was generally employed by a law enforcement agency of some kind. A private investigator is merely licensed to investigate things as an independent contractor (or as part of an agency).)

“Well,” I said. “I’m new in town, right? But I figure that Applejack seems pretty convinced that the smaller farm— the privately owned one— is probably not at fault here? Like, Applejack, you don’t think they’re trying to actively sabotage Sweet Apple Acres or anything, right?”

“If they were,” Applejack said, “It’d sure be news to me. Those folk tend to keep to themselves, sure, but they’re pleasant enough. Can’t fault a pony for enjoying their privacy.”

“Alright, then,” I said. “I figure your instincts are better than mine here, and that’s that.”

Rarity squinted at me for an instant. It didn’t last long, but it was definitely noticeable. I might’ve been a bit too obvious with how I was biasing the conclusion there.

“It appears,” Rarity said,”that the two of you are in agreement that this family is probably not at fault?”

“Yep.”

“Yeah.” I nodded at Rarity’s question. “I don’t really think that makes sense. Sure, there's a motive there, but I doubt that they have the resources? These other ponies sound very… uh, evil, for lack of a better phrase.”

I was maybe laying it on a little thick, but it’s not like I could break out the monster manual and give them a three hour lecture on supernatural creatures. It would have to do.

“Yeah,” Applejack muttered darkly. “Those Wokefoal fellas are real pieces of work. They’ve been goin’ around Ponyville the last couple months tryin’ to buy out small food businesses and family owned farms. That Nectarine gal has been here at Sweet Apple Acres near a dozen times now, try’n to convince me and Granny Smith to sell the place.”

Rarity considered that. “That seems very persistent. Unusually so.”

“Ayup,” Applejack said. “Last offer came close to about fifteen million. We told ‘em to get lost, but I’m sure she’ll be back with more charts and higher numbers and some extra dollar signs soon enough.” Applejack sighed and slumped back into her chair. “Those ponies just don’t get it, the farms been in the family for generations. We just ain’t for sale, doesn’t matter how much cash they try to pile on.”

Fifteen MILLION??

I started running some numbers in my head. Supermarkets and farms were decently profitable, but they weren’t that profitable. Not if you were undercutting your competitors at such a ridiculous percentage. You still had to pay for transport of goods — a squad of earth ponies to pull a large cart or food to feed a pack animal weren’t cheap by any means— and even if you were mystically good at figuring out appropriate amounts of inventory to order at exactly the right time, it would be inevitable that a lot of that would be wasted. The economics just didn’t work out at scale for that sort of strategy to work.

Did I mention I do my own taxes too?

“That sounds a bit fishy,” I said. Applejack quirked an eyebrow at me, and I could see the gears spinning in Rarity’s head— she was probably coming to the same conclusions I was.

“I don’t really know,” Applejack said. “The land might fetch a pretty penny all on its lonesome, and the existin’ infrastructure we got here comes out to a fair dollar. They’re offerin’ a fair bit more than what I think it would go fer, but it doesn’t seem strange if they just want to buy us out and be done with it, right? Am I missing something?”

I nodded.

“The margins for a business that operates like that — specifically deliberately undercutting everypony else by such a ridiculous degree— would be so thin that you could fit them in between the wall and the wallpaper,” I explained. “With some room to spare. Buying your farm for millions of dollars? I don’t see how they’d make money on that sort of investment, no offense. Not anytime soon.”

Rarity chimed in. “It’s a bit ridiculous, yes.”

“Well, why on earth are they tryin’?” Applejack replied. She put her hooves up to her eyes and shook her head. “I’m plum tired of dealin’ with all this! I just want to run my dang farm!”

We sat for a while without speaking, the silence broken only by the distant sounds of farm work and noises from the barn animals. I decided to wait for somepony else to pipe up first, since I was the least familiar with everypony here, and it seemed like Applejack was having a moment.

“It would seem that — given Twilight’s excellent observations,” Rarity continued, nodding politely to me. “That it must not be about the money.”

“Okay then,” Applejack took her hooves from her face. “You pairs of smartyhooves explain to me, what’s this business all about? Doesn’t make sense to me, that’s fer sure.”

“I can think of one explanation,” Rarity said.

“Go on then.”

“Territory,” Rarity stated. “There’s likely some sort of criminal aspect to this.”

Applejack froze for a bit, mouth slightly ajar, before her eyes narrowed and she slammed a hoof on the table.

I don’t know what the particulars of her relationship with Rarity were, but it seemed like the two had a pretty rocky friendship at the moment. I had the distinct feeling that Rarity had just brushed up against a major sore spot.

“Look here, Rarity, I’ve told you time in and time out: I don’t want nothin’ to do with any sort of shady business that you’re mucked up in.”

“Applejack, believe me: it isn’t anything I’m involved in. Let’s just calm down — “

“No, you calm down!” Applejack yelled. “I’m mad for plenty a good reason. Farm’s gonna get all sorts of trouble from the animals at Fluttershy’s getting sick, just this mornin’ we been getting a few calls today about ponies coming down with a nasty stomach bug and having to go to the hospital, and now you’re telling me that that could all be some sort of criminal funny business? We got a livelihood to protect here! Our reputation, even. Don’t be comin’ here out of the blue after years and be sittin’ down in my kitchen and get the nerve to tell me to calm down. After all the cockamamey horsehockey we been through together growing up, you owe me that much.”

My jaw dropped a bit, since that seemed to come out of left field.

Wow. She was furious.

Rarity’s eyes were glued to the floor, as if she didn’t know what to say. It was pretty clear by now that Applejack and Rarity had a history. I kept quiet for the most part, since I didn’t see any point in butting in while they were going at it.

I was also busy tying myself in knots.

My conundrum was as follows: I could actually, probably, solve some of the problems Applejack was having, at least in part. This would require me to use my wondrous wizardly wisdom to figure out a way to locate all the maliciously enchanted food on her property — that probably wasn’t going to be so complicated, and it might just boil down to an afternoon of hard work. That would ensure that nopony else would be getting sick off her family’s crops at least. If I really put my mind to it, I might figure out some way to get rid of the food poison spell altogether, which might save her a lot of money to boot. That would be the right thing to do.

The downside was that there were two major issues with running around willy-nilly and just showing people how to use magic. First and foremost, was that the White Council frowned very heavily about that sort of thing. It was much easier to exist as a wizard in Equestrian society if nopony went around burning the metaphorical commons and letting the secret out the door. If I started doing that beyond the level of wizard-themed advertising for my side job (which is what I could inevitably explain it away as, and nopony would really look too closely) there might be some Consequences with a capital ‘C’ coming my way down the line. I had already done the responsible thing and contacted the local warden, which guaranteed that somepony would be around in a few days at most to be checking things over with a fine-tooth comb.

The second issue was way less complicated: I was partly involved with this mess because Queen Celestia called in a favor that I owed her, and it struck me as a good idea to step incredibly carefully because of that. I didn’t want Celestia angry with me. That’s a good way to have my entire apartment glassed from orbit, or get turned into a statue for ten thousand years, or whatever absurd sorts of shenanigans Faerie queens can do.

Come to think of it, I should probably try to sort most of this out before the White Council warden gets here.

Hmmm. Maybe that one was more of a reason to be a little more open with these two ponies than not.

Rarity and Applejack were also operating under some false assumptions: that the organization behind this was operating with some sort of funky criminal interests. That might be true at some level, but I knew that a Red Court vampony was heavily involved in this mess— which meant that the motives could range from ‘some obscure plot to weaken the populace so we can eat them more easily’ to ‘because sowing suffering and despair among ponykind is what we do every Tuesday’. They might run into some very real danger as a result of that lack of info. They could get hurt.

And it would be on my head if they did.

A few of the lessons that I was taught over the last few years weren’t related to magical theory at all. Some of the hardest to learn were about why you should use it. The philosophical questions pertaining to that were difficult to arrive at an answer to, mostly because your answer to that question had to be your answer to that question. Mine turned out to be surprisingly simple, mostly.

I believed in using magic to make the world a better place.

Which made my decision simple, if not easy.

I cleared my throat.

Comments

[Comickook]

Again, really good job on the exchange, characterizations and future chapter set-up in all the right places. Really appreciated the processing on the suspects in the case (though, I have to say, in mysteries like this, it is almost always the ones that you would LEAST suspect [unless you were absurdly Genre Savvy of course]) as well as reasoning why the quieter of the suspects seems like the less likely (even if the genre is telling me that they probably have A LOT more resources than they want their competition to think) and how that other farm is offering more than Sweet Apple Acres is worth (not an insult to the land as it is quite expensive, but very unlikely for that sort of offered money to turn a profit without some extremely shady side businesses. But then, people blow tens of millions of dollars on political campaigns to get jobs that legally only pay a few hundred thousand a year in real life too). And, yeah, the considering of the Red Court vampires and the assorted motives, in addition to the added information concerning the council keeping a semi-tight lid on magic and its full potential, were also great pieces of information.

Most assuredly looking forward to more of this.

And, considering Thanksgiving is just a week from tomorrow, I am wishing you and your family and friends a safe and happy Thanksgiving in advance.

[Pinklestia]

Honesty this is the weakest part of the crossover since as far as most ponies know unicorns already use some sort of magic. For a wizard it may be very limited but for most ponies? Is still magic. Even more so for non ponies that cannot do it.

[Comickook]

11052950
Yeah. That's a pretty valid point. My guess here is that, well, it's more along the lines of keeping magic's FULL POTENTIAL a secret to either avoid an unnecessary panic or to prevent giving the wrong sort of individuals bad ideas.

For example, basic levitation, flight and increased strength and speed are all good and well and certainly well within the bounds of what is allowed to be known, but if it were common knowledge that time travel, mind control and other stuff was possible (though extremely difficult and even more extremely unethical), that would be extremely bad news. Some madpony clamoring for world power would stop at nothing to find ways to obtain those secrets.

[Pinklestia]

11053011

Thing is pegasi MANIPULATE THE WEATHER and Earth ponies can turn arid land into fertile land, finding that some food has magic in it that makes people sick is not beyond that. Maybe removing the curse may be pushing it, but that's exactly what the Warden would have to do.

Also, they LIVE NEXT TO THE EVERFREE FOREST, is very easy to blame weird stuff to it. No need to say a wizard did it.

[Mister Morden]

Twilight can't help but try and help people...

[Pinklestia]

11053047

To be fair she literally has to this time since Queen Celestia of Summer called in a Favor.

[Booster Spice]

Twilight still has her limitations.

After all, any sufficintly advanced magic is indistinguishable from Pinkie?