September 1 – 8:43 PM
Although the sun had set, Luna’s full moon seemed unusually bright that evening, providing more than enough visibility for Fluttershy to put her new fog suit through its paces. As she darted in and out of the massive fog bank, it seemed that all of Rarity’s stitching was holding up quite nicely. Rainbow Dash had insisted that they make this flight together, but although Fluttershy had to admit that the test was practical, it was not the real reason she had gone along with her friend’s gentle nagging. Quite simply, despite the fact that she knew more about this particular fog bank than anypony else in Equestria, Fluttershy had been so busy over the past two days that this was the first opportunity she’d actually had to see the fog for herself.
She’d initially approached it with trepidation; sure, she knew from secondhoof accounts what to expect, but hearing somepony else’s description and experiencing something for herself were very different things. Just as Pinkie Pie had said, the inside was bitterly cold and palpably thick, but being an earth pony, she couldn’t possibly have noticed the pegasus magic that was working—overworking, in fact—in the massive cloud bank, binding the water droplets together as the concrete-like fog continued to set up.
She exited the fog and looked over it again as she hovered in the air, waiting for Rainbow Dash to rejoin her. Even with her fog suit, the fog had made flying difficult. Rainbow had explained this to her, of course, but she apparently had underestimated how much difficulty somepony who wasn’t a particularly strong flyer would have; to Fluttershy, flying through the fog felt like trying to flap her wings in molasses. This wasn’t to say that getting fitted for the suit had been a waste of time, though; without it, Fluttershy wasn’t certain she’d even be able to walk through the fog, let alone take flight. Still, she hadn’t noticed anything that would lead her to doubt her plan, which fortunately meant that she (probably) wouldn’t need to use the somewhat complicated scheme for contacting Luna via her dreams that the Princess had mentioned in her letter.
“So, how’s the suit?” Rainbow Dash asked as she exited the fog and flew up to her friend.
“Oh, it’s fine. I didn’t quite expect it to feel so snug, though.”
Rainbow Dash stifled a giggle. “Fluttershy, these things press our manes down so flat that we look like we’re bald from a distance. Why wouldn’t you expect them to be snug?”
“I suppose I just didn’t need to think about it very much until I got inside one.” Fluttershy was dreading the prospect of looking in a mirror after taking her suit off; never had she envied Rainbow’s perpetually messy-looking manestyle so much. The two of them landed by a road and began walking back to town.
“So,” Rainbow Dash abruptly said in a strangely disinterested tone of voice, “what do you think of that Pencil Pusher guy?”
Fluttershy seemed taken aback by the question. “I... I’m not sure why you’re asking me.”
“Just curious, that’s all,” Rainbow said. “It’s not every day you meet a bureaucrat like him.”
“Oh. Well, um, I like working with him, I guess. He’s definitely gone above and beyond what I would have expected to help me out. I mean, Princess Luna says that he took the initiative to get around that one problem with... which agency was it again?” Fluttershy paused and tapped her chin for a few seconds as she tried to recall all the details of Luna’s message. Still drawing a blank, she moved on: “Anyway, I appreciate that he recognized that there wasn’t enough time to ask my opinion, and he apparently understands me well enough to do something that’s sort of similar to what I’d do. Well, I might be a bit more nervous about asking for help, but you know what I mean.”
Rainbow Dash nodded her head. “Right, he’s a really great coworker, but that’s kind of obvious if you ask me. What do you think of him as a regular pony, though?”
“Well, I’m not sure. I haven’t really had the chance to see what he’s like as a regular pony. He seems nice enough, though. I suppose I wouldn’t mind keeping in touch with him after this is all over; he seems like he’d be a dependable friend.”
“Just a friend, then?” Rainbow Dash asked as she cocked an eyebrow.
Fluttershy blushed at the implication. “Um, well, I haven’t thought about that too much. I mean, I’d obviously need to get to know him a lot better for him to be more than that.”
“So, what you’re saying is that he might be your type, then. You’d just need to learn a bit more to figure it out.”
“I guess... but why are you asking me?”
“Well, I just wanted to know what you thought about him. I mean, he seems like a pretty cool guy, for a desk jockey.” Rainbow Dash replied in her most nonchalant tone, though her grin had grown somewhat larger by the time Fluttershy had turned her head away.
September 1 – 10:01 PM
Under normal circumstances, Greg would not be caught dead at his workplace after five o’clock. After all, one of the best parts of being a supervisor was that you could unload all your tasks onto your subordinates and make them do all the work while you relaxed in an armchair with a frosty can of cider. But these were clearly abnormal circumstances, which was why Greg now found himself in a meeting with the other bigwigs at the Department of Weather, instead of one of Cloudsdale’s more upscale watering holes. It was very important to look important when important things were happening, and the fact that it was his insight that had made this important meeting so important would only reflect well on him in the future.
“Look, Greg, I understand your concern, but this is an emergency situation. We need to be willing to take risks.”
Greg let out a short sigh. Doubtless, Synergy meant well, but if Hard Hitter was right, she’d be on the way out shortly, which meant that now was the time to demonstrate his superiority for her position as head of Personnel. This, he reckoned, was most easily accomplished by finding ways to dismiss everything she said. “Reasonable risks, sure. Not insane ones.”
“I’m sure the fog specialist knows what she’s doing,” said a stallion at the opposite end of the table. Greg couldn’t remember which division he was in charge of, which in turn probably meant that he wasn’t worth knowing, but now was not the time to risk looking weak.
“Fog specialist. Not a forest specialist.”
A short, grey mare near the front of the table let out a sigh. This was Fussbudget, the department’s Undersecretary of Finance and Greg’s immediate superior. “You both make good points,” she said in a slightly quivering voice, “but we need to reach a decision. I say we take a vote on the matter.”
This seemed a most agreeable solution to most ponies, particularly Greg, who was fairly certain that he was going to win. Nopony liked the headaches that came with dealing with complaints about departmental authority, after all.
Fussbudget called out, “All in favor...” but before any “ayes” could be registered, the door to the conference room burst open, revealing a svelte, dark blue alicorn with a stern face and an extremely powerful set of lungs.
“This meeting shall cease at once!” Princess Luna announced, nearly deafening several of the bureaucrats through her use of the Royal Canterlot Voice in an enclosed space—which was actually a fairly impressive feat, given that cloud walls tended to absorb noise rather than reflect it.
“Princess Luna!” Fussbudget exclaimed as she rose from her seat and quickly bowed. The other bureaucrats quickly followed suit. “What are you doing here?” Fussbudget asked as everypony returned to their seats.
“Earlier this evening, I was informed by a Mr. Pencil Pusher that there has been some uncertainty regarding the current plans for dealing with the fog bank, particularly where it may conflict with the Interior Department’s milieu. I have elected to give the plan full royal approval, thus entirely circumventing the problem of jurisdiction. Because time is of the essence, I am here in Cloudsdale to ensure that Fluttershy’s plan is properly executed.” Relieved expressions filled the room as Luna finished proclaiming her intent; when faced with potentially controversial actions, there are few things in the world more comforting than knowing that a princess is going to cover your flank if anything goes wrong.
This was not good, at least as far as office politics went. Not only had Princess Luna rendered Greg’s carefully considered objections irrelevant, but she’d actually praised that ungrateful suck-up! Sure, she’d managed to get Ping-Pong Paddle’s name wrong, but everypony in the room knew who she’d meant. Clearly, Greg needed to salvage the situation, and fast. “Risky, though,” he said in his most concerned tone of voice. “Trouble if it doesn’t work.”
“I beg your pardon?” Luna asked after a brief pause.
“Not good to rush,” Greg said, hopefully clarifying his position.
Princess Luna simply stared at the paunchy bureaucrat, wrinkling her nose as if she’d come across the contents of an upturned chamberpot. “Why are you talking like that?”
Greg wasn’t sure what to make of this. “Like what?”
“You seem unable to express yourself in a complete sentence, yet this is clearly not due to any sort of nervousness on your part. Indeed, it is almost as if you believed that completely ignoring the rules of grammar made you sound impressive.”
“Don’t know what you mean,” Greg said as slouched in his chair, doing his best to avoid eye contact with anypony else in the room.
“‘I don’t know what you mean,’” Luna corrected him, sounding like a very displeased schoolmarm.
“Right,” Greg said.
If one had asked Greg how he’d managed to get his job, he would likely have responded with some terse statements about his ability to motivate his subordinates. Those subordinates, on the other hoof, were more likely to attribute their boss’ success to his tendency to take credit for what other ponies had done, or possibly to dumb luck. In truth, all of these possibilities were true to some degree, but they all paled in comparison to what was truly Greg’s greatest talent, albeit a talent that neither Greg nor anypony else was actually aware that he had: an uncanny ability to shut up before he revealed the full extent of his incompetence to anypony whose opinion actually mattered.
Accordingly, Greg stopped talking.
September 1 – 11:56 PM
Twilight Sparkle found Fluttershy sitting on the observation deck. The pegasus had decided to stay at the library tonight, just in case there were any breaking developments in the early hours of the morning. At the moment, though, Fluttershy seemed more interested in Luna’s night sky than her impending plan, and quite frankly, Twilight couldn’t blame her. With all the naturally-occurring clouds cleared out of the Ponyville area, Luna’s tapestry looked especially stunning. “Do you want me to get you a blanket?” she asked.
“No, I’ll be coming in soon,” Fluttershy said. “I need to make sure to get some sleep in case Princess Luna needs to tell me something.”
Twilight sat down beside her friend. “It’s been quite a day, hasn’t it?”
“Yes, it has.”
“Tomorrow’s going to be even more interesting.”
Fluttershy nodded absently; apparently, she wasn’t in the mood for small talk at the moment, though her slight smile suggested that this wasn’t due to any particular stress. “What do you think about Pencil Pusher?” Fluttershy abruptly asked.
“Uh, he seems nice enough,” Twilight said, somewhat bemused by the sudden change of subject. “Why?”
Fluttershy let out brief sigh before answering, “I think Rainbow Dash likes him.”
Twilight seemed surprised. “Really? You’re sure?”
Fluttershy nodded. “We were talking about him earlier this evening. She said she thought he was ‘pretty cool.’”
“Uh, Fluttershy, Rainbow says a lot of things are ‘pretty cool.’”
“Yes, but this time she was using her ‘no big deal’ voice.”
Twilight’s eyes widened. Whenever Rainbow Dash tried to sound blasé about anything, that almost always meant that she was on the verge of becoming completely obsessed with it. “Huh,” the unicorn said with a slight chuckle. “It’s not what I would have expected, but I guess you can’t really predict this sort of thing, can you?”
“No, I guess you can’t,” Fluttershy said before turning to stare at the night sky once again.
For a fleeting moment, Twilight thought she detected the faintest wisp of bittersweetness in Fluttershy’s voice, but she set that aside. At the very least, this unlikely matchup meant that there would be something to occupy her mind while waiting for the plan to go into effect. The unicorn smiled to herself as she went back inside the library. Wait until Rarity hears about this!
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Augh!
Rainbow will have to lock them in a room together or something
Oh. Dear.
Were I Rarity, the moment I heard this, I'd just nip this in the bud right then.
"No."
"She said--what?"
"No, we're not doing this. Pencil pusher has a crush on you, Fluttershy."
Greg, Open Mouth, and Insert your Hoof ALL THE WAY TO THE SHOULDER!
Please more now. Haha but seriously, good job. It was so pleasing to see Greg put down, I was getting angry with him in earlier chapters.
Oh no... Fluttershy thinks Dash likes Pencil pusher... Not good. Rarity, save the situation before it's too late!
But seriously I am sitting here waiting for the next chapter. Good luck!
...Pfft. So, now we've got two hilarious subplots running alongside the main. Both caused by misunderstandings. Comedy tag earned! Heeheeheehee!
Great
Oh my God, this is hilarious. If this were a clopfic, I'd assume PP is about to get Double Rainbowed. As it stands, he's probably just going to faint.
I can't help but wonder if Dash has made a bet with someone over Fluttershy and Pencil Pusher's relationship. That, or she just wants her friend to be happy.
Also, part of me wants to see Luna fire Greg on the simple basis that no pony who thinks himself above the rules of grammar should be trusted with any kind of power.
In any case, looking forward to more.
4318884
I do hope she does something like that. Rarity will not allow comic misunderstandings to postpone such a marvelous pairing.
every day
Sounds . . . important.
4319153 I want that to happen, but I think we all know that Rarity's sense of drama won't allow her to.
4319186
The Law of Narrative Causality is a powerful thing.
*gasps for air*
But seriously, more people need Greg's talent, particularly politicians, though I would like to see him get fired just because every time he speaks, he pisses off the slightly OCD part of me that requires perfect grammar.
Project matchmaker has nosedived hilariously.
Greg is inches closer to forced retirement.
It's a good day.
4319430
No, they really don’t. The fewer politicians who are able to conceal their complete and utter incompetence the better.
derpicdn.net/img/2012/9/19/102177/thumb.jpg
Oh, that ending.
I think my favorite thing here is that Greg seriously believes that Pencil Pusher is not his correct name.
I really hope that when they go to
that
will be there as well so she can set the record straight 
it will be obvious to her that, that is simply not 
style she is not that subtle. 
would have just told 
that she liked him if that were the case and leave it at that and asking 
to keep the secret
4319430 no they do not because they have obviously already perfected it except where it comes to the people they represent
Wow. That is so unbelievably Fluttershy... yeah. Only she would have so little self-confidence as to mistake Rainbow Dash's not-so-subtle hints like that.
There a description of Greg's cutie mark yet? Can't remember. Hard to imagine one for his special talent.
(ONLY RORSCHACH CAN PULL OFF TALKING THAT WAY!!!)
Now, how to make Pencil think Rainbow likes him? IT SHALL BE COMEDY GOLD!
Luna: Cease and desist, fiend! This meddling shall end at once!!!
How exactly would one open a can without fingers or magic? I suppose feathers might work, depending on how prehensile they are, though that kind of leaves the Earth Ponies out in the dust. Unless their cans open through some other method than the pull-tab...
Dang. Now I'm trying to come up with schematics for a hoof-friendly can.
Supervillains with this talent are usually the hardest for heroes to deal with. I love the way this is described.
4320112 Not necessarily. We get a clear view of the situation because we see it from the perspectives of all the characters, but Fluttershy's assessment is totally valid. Rainbow probably wouldn't the kind of person to talk about the kind of pony she'd fancy, so asking for Fluttershy's insight and acting all nonchalant about it would be a thing she could realistically do. Fluttershy didn't really challenge her on the purpose of her inquiries, and I'm sure at least Twilight (and possibly Pinkie Pie) would have done the same. Rarity would be too savy to not connect the dots, though, and Applejack would probably demand an explanation for everything.
4320668 Probably just a bigger, slightly knobbier tab.
4320775 But that would be so unwieldy!
And thus, by not speaking out against the idea, Greg was volunteered to help on-site, where he shall demonstrate the Cutie Mark Crusader's skill at making traps.
4320850 Maybe a spike or pointy piece of metal of some kind, on a band that fits around their hoof? Stab a hole or two in the top of the can, and you've got it!
Like most fanfic writers, eh?
In all seriousness, I can't wait to see how both these subplots pan out.
I seriously hope we get a full and free depiction of Greg's disastrous flameout in front of the Princess. Or both Princesses. Or everyone in existence. I'm not picky.
IF you went through all this just to reveal Flutters as having the hots for RD...
CURSES! Greg, you just HAD to shut up didn't you!
4320850
The things earth ponies can do with their tongues.
To be fair, in the absence of genuine aptitude, this is probably the best talent one could have. Even with genuine aptitude, you'd probably do well to cultivate it.
Rarity - I've got a problem for you, straight out of one of your romance novels! Think you can fix it?
... I hope that's a 'yes'...
4319186
Well fortunately Rarity knows that Dash knows that Pencil Pusher is interested in Fluttershy. So hopefully her common sense will overcome her sense of drama. I figure worst case scenario she'll confront Dash and call her a backstabber.
Of course all this assumes Twi manages to tell Rarity before her or Shy accidently let it slip to half the town.
4318884
I second this.
God, you've done a fantastic job of making me hate Greg for all the right reasons. More often than not in stories (ANY stories, not just fanfiction) you end up hating characters because they're poorly written ("God, the writing for this character is terrible, I hate him!") or because the story beats you over the head with telling you they're hate-worthy. But the way you've written Greg makes it stunningly clear that he is a terrible person without having to tell the reader "This guy is terrible, hate him."
Oh Flutters.
Magnificent!
4321486 I knew Greg's talent was covering his plot!
Pseudo-romantic entanglement!!!!!!
I'm so excited!
Also, that ability of Greg's is EXTREMELY useful
Looking forward to more!
Haha! Greg's ignorance has gotten so huge that it's barely even annoying at this point, just hilarious to read!
Oh, no...
Oh, dear...
Needless to say, it was nice to see Greg get a little comeuppance, even if it was just a brief address. Here's to more justice in future chapters!
This misunderstanding about Fluttershy, Rainbow, and Pencil shall definitely prove amusing. Really can't wait to see that.
If Greg doesn't end up under Tom before the end of this, Applejack will eat her hat.
What? Don't look at me like that...
Christ yet another twist, this has really been a rollercoaster ride...
4320850 For humans, maybe. For ponies? I doubt it.
Can't wait to see when those two go on a date :)
AH TIS A SIMPLE FIX. ALL WE HAVE TO DO IS FOR THEM TO HAVE A THREESOME.
4326358 read your comment out of context, and you'll understand why
4334325
LOL!
4320933
So a churchkey, basically. (Before pop-tops, everyone used a tool like that to open beer cans.)
4335455 Sort of... although I was envisioning something more like a giant thumbtack, with a strap around the top or something so it could fit over a pony hoof...
Oh my. This story is really coming along. I'm not usually a fan of romance, but it seems well-executed here. Be careful not to drift into drama, though. If you keep the story going in the same direction, I'm sure it will be fantastic. keep up the good work.